Friday 29 July 2011

TextCoin - Bitcoin Via SMS

If you've found your way here, chances are you've already looked into ways to acquire bitcoin or are still in the process or researching it. Chances are, also, that you've figured that CPU mining is too taxing for your computer, GPU mining is too expensive, and buying via the various bitcoin exchanges is just too time-consuming and inconvenient. But wait! Don't give up on joining the bitcoin community just yet. If you have a mobile phone (and, really, who doesn't these days?) then TextCoin is the thing for you.

Created by Matthew Dyson, TextCoin is based on M-PESA, an SMS‐based money transfer system that allows individuals to deposit, send, and withdraw funds using their cell phone. M-PESA was launched in 2007 by Safaricom, the leading mobile phone company in Kenya and, as at August 2010 reached 38% of Kenya’s adult population and is widely viewed as a success story to be emulated across the developing world [Source].

You may or may not know that mobile phone usage is very widespread across Africa, where many users have never previously actually owned or used a land line before leap-frogging straight into mobile market. From city kids and business men to rural farmers and small traders, the mobile phone take-up in Africa has grown at a phenomenal rate, proving financially viable, and even exponentially so, for savvy network providers who got in early. Of course, one of the main advantages of this system is that a user doesn't have to own or have access to a computer to use it (although internet access is also growing in Africa and across the developing world).

Essentially then, what Dyson has done with TextCoin is make the process of buying bitcoin as simple and widely accessible as possible.

TextCoin is currently only available in the UK, although plans are afoot to roll it out internationally. Once that happens, it doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to see how easy it will suddenly become to take part in the bitcoin revolution and quite possibly make bitcoin the truly global currency of the future, both in developing and developed countries around the world.

So, if you live in the UK and have wanted to get into bitcoin but have seen previous methods of entry as being too much of a barrier, then why not give TextCoin a try. If you're not in the UK, then bookmark the TextCoin website and visit it from time to time to see when/if it rolls out in your neck of the woods.

Don't forget that you'll already have to have a bitcoin address to send your bitcoin to, and you can get this online via sites such as Instawallet and MyBitcoin, downloading the Bitcoin Android app from the Android Market, or downloading the bitcoin client onto your computer. Each of these methods will automatically allocate you with a bitcoin address which you can then use for your bitcoin purchase on TextCoin.

Once you've purchased your first bitcoin, then just find places to shop (you can check this site from time to time for vendors accepting bitcoin - see the btc economy API to the right of this post - or search the internet for new vendors local to you), and/or send it to friends and family so they can start using it too!

6 comments:

  1. hi i want buy bitcoin from mobile sms payemnt is there any way or i also can buy by paypal pls reply janudar@yahoo.com and join my site www.madani-bux.com

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  2. You could also check out http://sms2btc.co.uk, I think you would find their prices competitive.

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  3. Www.bitcoin-services.co.uk have a sms to bitcoin exchange

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  4. Www.bitcoin-services.co.uk s-o-b is scammere scam me 4 euro

    ReplyDelete