29 July 2014 / Payment Source – For most of the digital currency’s existence, the price of a bitcoin has swung wildly. Coinapult is looking to remove this risk with the launch of Coinapult Locks, which pins the value of a user’s bitcoin balance to a stable asset.
“Our thesis is that 99% of normal people aren’t currency speculators, and won’t deal with a service that exposes them to volatility in daily transactions,” said Gabe Sukenik, executive director at Coinapult. “We created Locks as a bridge to overcome this barrier to entry, and allow users to exist in the Bitcoin ecosystem without have to worry about the price.”
If a user locks $1,000 in bitcoins, the user will still have $1,000 in bitcoins no matter how much the price fluctuates over time. Though this reduces the risk when bitcoins’ price plummets, it also means that if the price increases, the consumer won’t receive the benefits of that deflation.
The company predicts its Locks feature will be especially useful for savings, employee wages and rent payments. Users can lock bitcoin balances to gold, silver and a range of national currencies.
Users are limited to locking $3,000 worth of bitcoins. Locks can be held indefinitely if the user is active, and users can unlock their bitcoins at any time. If a customer has been inactive for four years, Coinapult will try to return the funds in the user’s account.
The Coinapult wallet allows people to send and receive bitcoins by email or text message. Consumers can set up a wallet account by providing only a username and password….. Read more
