Swedish startup Flattr, which offers an ‘online tipjar’ service, has announced it has added partial support for Bitcoin: you can now fund your account with the virtual currency. Furthermore, the company is considering adding the option to withdraw in Bitcoins too, but it first wants to gauge its community’s desire for the feature on Twitter.
To fund your Flattr account with Bitcoin, head to the Add funds page and choose Bitcoin. “The Bitcoin payments are handled by awesome Danish Startup BIPS, located in Copenhagen, just 30 minutes from Malmö, where we are,” Flattr says.
For those who don’t know, Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, currently the most-widely used alternative to common forms of money. Because it has no central issuer, it has no single authority and thus no way to lock out certain users (or countries) out of the network. Bitcoin can be used to pay for certain transactions both offline and online.
Flattr meanwhile is a microdonation provider founded by Peter Sunde (of Pirate Bay fame) and Linus Olsson and launched in March 2010. Users can pay a small amount every month (the minimum is 3 euros) and then click Flattr buttons on sites to share their money among those sites.
Flattr’s decision to support Bitcoin is thus not too big of a surprise. The more payment methods the startup can support, the greater potential for adoption by more and more users.
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Bitcoin has received support from big names as of late, including WordPress in November, Mega in February, and OKCupid in April. Even PayPal’s president has said he’s “kinda thinking about” including it as a funding instrument one day.
See also – Flattr now lets you make money from your Twitter Favorites, Instagram Likes and more and Twitter cuts off another payment service: Flattr is told to stop tying Favorites to money
Top Image Credit: Zach Copley
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