PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION
Today 9th February 2018, www.mybottleshop.com.au became the first liquor store in Australia to accept the wildly successful crypto-currency Bitcoin.
Why Bitcoin?
The idea behind Bitcoin was to produce a means of exchange, independent of any central authority, that could be transferred electronically in a secure way. Bitcoin’s most important characteristic is that it is decentralised. No single institution controls the bitcoin network. Traditionally banks have control over traditional currency and money ownership. With Bitcoin, the integrity of the transactions is maintained by a distributed and open network, owned by no-one.
Traditional currencies such as dollars, euros, yen, etc. have an unlimited supply (known as fiat money) – central banks can issue as many banknotes as they want, and can attempt to manipulate a currency’s value relative to others, for example by printing extra money. Holders of the currency bear the cost of printing extra currency and ultimately fiat money has no intrinsic value.
With Bitcoin, on the other hand, the supply is tightly controlled by the underlying algorithm. A small number of new Bitcoins trickle out every hour, and will continue to do so at a diminishing rate until a maximum of 21 million has been reached. This makes bitcoin more attractive as an asset – in theory, if demand grows and the supply remains the same, the value will increase. Bitcoin has intrinsic value as it is a store of money not controlled by governments or other 3rd parties. The only other currencies that are a store of value are gold/silver backed currency or currency made from precious metals.
Bitcoin can enable micro-transactions that traditional electronic money cannot. The smallest unit of a bitcoin is called a satoshi. It is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin (0.00000001) – at today’s prices, about one hundredth of a cent.
Bitcoins are impossible to counterfeit.
Why would an Australian liquor store take bitcoin as payment?
So why would Australia’s #1 Online Liquor Store MyBottleShop decide to start accepting Bitcoins for payment? MyBottlesShop CEO Steven Rider said: “Like many of our friends in the online business world, we are disruptors. Online businesses are always on the cutting edge. Always disrupting traditional business methods. Cryptocurrencies represent the future. A future were payments will be controlled by individuals on their own mobile devices.” Rider went to say “Although Bitcoin right now is a volatile currency, over time as the currency is used more in a commercial setting, things will settle down. As a payment method though, Bitcoin is a very safe and easy to use method for both the customer and the merchant.”
How do you get Bitcoins?
First things first, after you have earned or purchased your Bitcoins, you need to transfer them to a digital wallet. It’s preferable to have the wallet on your phone or tablet; for portability reasons.
Bitcoin Wallets let owners send, receive and store Bitcoin amounts. Wallets secure funds by guarding private keys. These private keys act as the proof of ownership for Bitcoins. As such, a Bitcoin wallet is like a key to your safe deposit box on the Blockchain. Popular and safe Bitcoin wallets include Blockchain, Mycelium, and Jaxx. Some digital wallets like Bread, are mobile device only.
Bitcoins can be purchased and sold online in Australia through exchanges such as Bitcoin Australia, CoinJar, BTC Markets, Australian Cryptocurrency Exchange (ACX), and CoinTree. Bitcoin is a trade-able currency as well as a store of value, so its price will go up and down.
How do I buy stuff from MyBottleShop Using Bitcoin?
To buy goods from MyBottleShop the customer adds goods to the shopping cart like normal , select Bitcoin as the payment option in the checkout and then scan the on-screen QR code using their mobile device. Payment will be processed by Bitpay and within a few second the customer will receive confirmation from their wallet and an order confirmation from MyBottleShop.
How does MyBottleShop get paid Bitcoin?
Funds are settled to MyBottleShop’s merchant Bitcoin account within a few hours. MyBottleShop uses Bitpay as a merchant facility. BitPay was founded in 2011 to make it easy for businesses to accept bitcoin payments. Bitpay is currently the largest bitcoin payment processor in the world. Bitpay was also the first company to release a bitcoin based credit card. The BitPay Card gives bitcoin users a fast way to convert bitcoin into dollars and spend their funds anywhere Visa® is accepted (not currently available in Australia).
About MyBottleShop
MyBottleShop.com.au is a 100,000 member strong online liquor store at the forefront of the new drinks revolution. A revolution where customers are consuming less but consuming better. More and more consumers are looking to have a top shelf drinks experience right in their own home and MyBottleShop provides the liquor, the mixers, the glassware and the tools to create an immersive drinks experience. From hand wrapped gifts, digital gift cards, bottle engraving, unique gift packs, 2 hour delivery, product reviews, serving suggestions, tasting notes, click and collect, message cards, tasting events, sample bottles, gifts with purchase, online chat and personalised service, MyBottleShop works hard to give consumers the best online drinks experience available in Australia today. Headquartered in Marrickville in Sydney’s urban inner west, MyBottleShop is Australia’s fastest growing liquor business with nearly 5000 liquor and related products and advanced delivery options.
For all media enquiries please contact Steven Rider Founder and CEO on 0405 27 1969 or (02) 9516 3816.