Despite some recent legal setbacks in the community and a complete lack of regulatory clarity, Bitcoin’s march to the mainstream continues forward as the value of a single Bitcoin hovers between $800 and $900. But getting into the virtual currency remains something of an obstacle for the average person. Now, a new Web service called Card for Coin is doing its part to take a few bricks off that barrier to entry.
Founded by Matt Luongo, a 25-year-old software developer and co-founder of research search engine Scholrly, Card for Coin lets users sell their unused Starbucks gift cards in exchange for Bitcoin. (Starbucks is not officially affiliated with the site.) Simply enter in your card details into the site, and Luongo checks the balance. He’ll then offer you “a percentage of the balance” (usually between 60 to 70 percent) in Bitcoin (BTC), says Luongo. Once the customer agrees to a price, Luongo transfers the BTC to customers using popular Bitcoin exchange Coinbase. After that, “customers can throw away their card,” he says.
While the 30 to 40 percent cut is likely too steep for seasoned Bitcoin investors, Luongo believes the simplicity of his service gives newcomers an easy way to get into the world’s most popular and valuable cryptocurrency.
“It’s a great way for beginners to get Bitcoin quickly – usually signing up at an exchange takes a while, but trading BTC for services or goods is much faster,” Luongo tells Digital Trends in an email. “There’s no minimum balance on the cards (e.g. < $5 is fine), so I think that makes the value proposition better as well.”
Luongo, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and describes himself as a “coffee-house philosopher,” says the inspiration behind Card for Coin came from his desire to support local coffee shops, as opposed to a large national chain. “Every Christmas, I get a bunch of Starbucks gift cards,” he says. “I’m big into specialty coffee, so I usually avoid Starbucks – but since people know I like coffee, those are the cards I get!”
After Tonx, an online coffee retailer, launched a service that exchanges Starbucks gift cards for its own Web-store credit, Luongo, who “co-works” with Tonx CTO Scott Rocher, took the idea and adapted it to create his own take on a Bitcoin exchange. “Bitcoin is so important right now, so I thought, ‘Hey, why not go straight to consumers?’” Luongo says.
While Luongo says he is “very interested” in Bitcoin alternatives (so-called altcoins) like Litecoin and Dogecoin, they are “a little bit more difficult to work with … since they don’t have quite the same infrastructure” as Bitcoin. Still, says Luongo, “if there’s demonstrated demand,” he would work to accept those altcoins. He’s also looking into accepting gift cards from other retailers (like Amazon).
Correction: Tonx was originally described as a coffee shop based in Atlanta; it is an entirely Web-based coffee seller.
(Images via 1000 Words/Shutterstock; Twitter)
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.
Military working dogs charge into places the rest of us would flee. So, I understand why anyone would want to breed tougher, healthier dogs for the job.
Warhound, a new startup from Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, has stepped out of stealth with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for American troops, police departments, and emergency services (via TechCrunch).
AI can describe a picture, identify objects, and answer questions about what a camera sees. But when a blind user needs a quick answer, getting an entire spoken essay about the scene isn't exactly helpful. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have found that AI-powered visual assistance can leave blind users doing too much work to get the information they actually need.
The study, titled Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users, examined how people interact with Be My AI, an AI-powered feature of the Be My Eyes app. The researchers found that users often received lengthy descriptions that didn't adequately address their immediate goals, forcing them to ask follow-up questions or find ways to steer the AI towards a more useful answer.