Bitcoin’s true purpose is for payments. Period. This is the core of money, and we sincerely believe that Bitcoin only makes sense when used as money. To be honest, if we cannot pay for our coffee anywhere we want to with bitcoin, then we will have lost.
Settlement and Payment
However, being honest also means acknowledging Bitcoin is more than money. It is digital gold, a highly secure and censorship-resistant payment system, and a decentralized settlement network. To maintain these properties, Bitcoin needs a small base layer – the blockchain. If the blockchain grows too big, it will centralize Bitcoin, and its core value vanishes.
The trade-off between decentralization and efficiency makes the base layer an inadequate payment system. Transactions are expensive, often slow, and the overall capacity is tightly limited. Bitcoin does not compete with PayPal and Visa. Everyday payments with bitcoin should and will happen on a higher layer, the so-called ‘Second Layer.’
Most people equate the second layer of Bitcoin with the Lightning Network. We are fans of Lightning, but to be honest again, in its current implementation Lightning is too cumbersome for many people. Especially for the average Joe and the people we wish to reach. Maybe it will be ready for global use in a few years.
If you prefer to use bitcoin for your coffee transactions today, you need another second layer system. This is what BitBucks provides. That’s why we say we are on a coffee mission.
Hello BitBucks
BitBucks facilitates the storage and exchange of bitcoins, as any wallet does. What makes this wallet special is that you can pay other users of BitBucks without letting the transaction hit the blockchain; it happens “off-chain.“ Hence BitBucks users help to keep Bitcoin free from micro-transactions while performing instant transactions without fees.
Further, BitBucks allows you to send money to your contacts using a smartphone. After they complete the payment, BitBucks sends the receiver an SMS invite. Following installation of the app, it grants them the payment.
It‘s possible to process payments in any currency. You can select your currency from the options. When you use BitBucks, you never again have to care about currency exchange rates. If you are in Germany, you count in Euro. If you are in Sweden, in Krona, in Japan with Yen, and so on, no matter the location your payment partner.
Our Vision
It‘s our vision that Bitcoin use continues to expand internationally for all kinds of payments. We wish to see a world where an Indonesian freelancer gets his fees from his Swedish customer, buys rice in his local supermarket, and pays for his coffee at the airport in Singapore. We want all purchases done with no need to care about currency exchanges, intermediaries, banks and so on.
We want all these payments to happen on Bitcoin. No inflation, no lacking banking infrastructure, no wait for payments being processed over intermediaries. We don‘t want this to happen with the Euro or altcoins, but with Bitcoin.
You can use BitBucks everywhere in the world, as far as the internet reaches. You don‘t need a banking infrastructure or payment providers. This is our vision; one money for every person globally, no matter who or where he or she is. We expect that BitBucks will help fulfil this vision.
Only for everyday payments
BitBucks is, we want to be honest again, a custodial wallet. The user does not control his private keys.
To repeat, with BitBucks you don‘t control your private keys. If BitBucks is compromised, you can lose your bitcoins. We don‘t want to leave the slightest confusion about this. We didn‘t create BitBucks to store your savings. Bitcoin gives you the option to be your own bank, and you should use it.
Instead, we created BitBucks for small, everyday payments. A coffee, a few cents to watch a video, perhaps a purchase at Ikea or Amazon. To do this, you don‘t need the security of Bitcoin‘s blockchain, but it is still great if you can pay with bitcoin.
BitBucks was made with merchants, media, gastronomy and commerce in mind. As the wallet allows payment to a QR code, BitBucks is also a perfect method for paying face-to-face.
Multi-signatures and Privacy
We did everything possible to build a meaningful infrastructure for this purpose. The bitcoins are stored on multi-signature (multi-sig) addresses. Vaults securely store the keys, and to gain access additional custodians are required. So, it‘s near impossible to steal them.
We also made great efforts to offer good privacy; for every deposit into BitBucks‘ wallets a new address is created. A blockchain observer knows little about how many coins you have in your BitBucks wallet. If you transfer coins to another BitBucks user, the transaction leaves no trail on the blockchain at all.
But we want to be honest. BitBucks is not meant for laundering money. We know all our users’ transactions, and when we get a legal order, we will hand over the data. But we will never sell your data or alienate it otherwise.
Our plans
Our goal with BitBucks is to create the perfect wallet for everyday bitcoin payments. As a first step, we want to optimize the iOS version. For this, we‘ll need your help as a tester. Then we will produce an Android version, followed by an app for the browser.
For the future, we plan to construct powerful APIs for merchants and users. We also want to create the option to pay with one click and enable a ton of micro-payment applications. Also, we want to facilitate the deposit of fiat money into your BitBucks account, so you can exchange for real money, i.e., bitcoin.
Further, we aim to integrate Lightning payments into BitBucks. The aim is to make BitBucks an easy-to-use interface for Lightning and a powerful network hub providing liquidity to other participants.
There are a lot more plans, but we prefer to not talk about them yet. First, we want to polish the iOS version and prepare an official release of BitBucks. Join the beta test to help us realize our vision!
BitBucks is for everyone. Download our simulation App on iOS now!
