Foldapp Lets You Pay with Bitcoin at Starbucks and Get 20% Off

Foldapp is a website that allows you to get 20% off Starbucks purchases by paying with Bitcoin. They are looking to expand to other retail companies that accept gift cards.

Similar to companies like Gyft, Fold allows you to buy gift cards supported by the International Coffee Lounge, through the great efficiency and minimal costs of Bitcoin. Simply load up with Bitcoin on the Foldapp website, and it will generate the magic code to get you Starbucks coffee, blueberry cheesecake, or whatever else you fancy, at 20% off.

Fold recently asked for feedback on ZapChain (the buzzing Bitcoin hangout), and the response from the community has been very positive. Within 24 hours Fold received over 100 reviews, and Bitcoiners are testing the tech all over the world. It reportedly works in the UK, US, Canada, Mexico and probably at any other Starbucks that accepts gift cards.

Matt Luongo, founder of Fold, answered questions and rained tips reviewers. He said Fold is also not just sticking to Starbucks, or coffee for that matter. During the feedback session Luongo said, “We're also working on Target, Whole Foods, etc. I'd love to get Blue Bottle on here, as well as some others.” He later also mentioned Walmart, Home Depot and CVS. Target apparently has already been tested and may even offer similar discounts. 

So how do they manage to offer such an amazing discount?

Luongo is also behind CardforCoin, a service that (you guessed it) buys cards for Bitcoin or Dogecoin. In response to curiosity about how they can offer such discounts, he said:

“Bitcoin is part of the magic. It offers us a competitive advantage when we buy cards - it's way faster than ACH, and more private - and accounts for a third to a half of the discount we're able to offer on Fold. The rest is the fact that we're using secondary-market gift cards in the first place.”

As far as price conversion goes, they use Coinbase’s spot price.

No app is actually needed, although they are working on iOS and Android apps. The service can be accessed on their website through any browser-enabled device, which makes it accessible cross platform, though not as easy to use as a native app.

The eager response from the community shows how hungry Bitcoiners are to drop their local national currencies and use Bitcoin everywhere. With discounts of this sort, it may be hard to go back to fiat.

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