All Posts Tagged “coinjar rewards”

Bitcoin transaction confirmation time and fees

CoinJar · March 29, 2017

The landscape for Bitcoin continues to intrigue and be unpredictable. This is especially true when it comes to Bitcoin transaction confirmation time and fees. We’ve had a lot of feedback over these past months as transactions sometimes have not been as close to instant (~10 mins) as one may have hoped when sending payments over the Bitcoin network. Industry pioneer, Erik Voorhees sums up these points in his excellent blog post.

The source of increased fees and confirmation times is a result of the popularity of Bitcoin — this is evident both in the rising price and number of bitcoin transactions. It is clear that balancing growth and sustainability of the Bitcoin network is still a work in progress. How this scaling debate plays out between software developers working on the protocol, miners, and vested interests is yet to be seen.

For CoinJar itself, our part in the industry landscape is that of on-boarding users and providing them an interface to Bitcoin. A practical and user friendly a solution increases the participants in the digital currency economy making it more diverse and resilient. One enabling factor CoinJar has made to achieve this is the ability to send bitcoin transactions completely free of charge by completely subsidising it. Inputting fee amounts, estimating them based on network congestion, and hoping you do not make an error, further steepens Bitcoin’s learning curve.

From April 3 2017, we will begin charging a transaction fee for sending on-chain Bitcoin transactions with CoinJar Points. The trifecta of a strong rise in the bitcoin price, the cost of relaying transactions, and the increased number of transactions has seen a massive spike in covering costs. While this current increase is not indicative of how Bitcoin’s fee structure will look like in the future, what it does reflect is that totally subsidised transactions on CoinJar are unsustainable for the company (and most wallet services) at this point.

Irrespective of proposed solutions to scale Bitcoin, the graph below presents factually what our company has been doing to completely subsidise transaction fees.

Denominated in $

CoinJar will charge a fixed 25 CoinJar Reward Points or a 0.0005 BTC fee per transaction. This enables us to continue subsidising fees at a more sustainable rate while being competitive in the fee market. This will result in quicker turnaround times when sending Bitcoin.

To help transition, new and existing users with CoinJar Rewards activated by the April 17, 2017 will receive a one-off 100 Points bonus. This is equivalent to four free Bitcoin transactions.

If you already use our exchange services or CoinJar Swipe, by activating your Rewards account you should be able to continue sending Bitcoin transactions at a fraction of the cost it normally would. By buying your workday morning coffee with CoinJar Swipe, you can earn 25 Points or 1 free Bitcoin transaction every week.

We strive to solve user experience hurdles with creative approaches in the digital currency space. CoinJar’s vested interest in the Bitcoin scaling debate is to advocate for the end consumer. A large and diverse user base of digital currency holders is just as an important part of the bitcoin infrastructure as Bitcoin code and mining.

The following Knowledge Base article provides more information on the mechanics of the new changes.

Earn CoinJar Points when you invite a friend to CoinJar

CoinJar · August 31, 2016

When you invite a friend or family member to join CoinJar, you’ll both be rewarded with 500 CoinJar Points.

Simply sign in to your CoinJar for your personalised referral link and share this with a close friend or family member. For each of your invitees who opens a new CoinJar using your personalised referral link and completes ID verification, you’ll both earn 500 CoinJar Points.

CoinJar Points can be used to cover fees during new currency exchanges, or redeemed for goods at the CoinJar Rewards Store.

CoinJar Points themselves are also receiving an update soon – with adjusted redemption and earning rates for currency conversions. These changes will be rolled out over a 30 day transitional period throughout September 2016. For further details on these updated rates, please refer to our Knowledge Base article.

Introducing CoinJar Rewards (and celebrating three years!)

CoinJar · May 2, 2016

It’s CoinJar’s third birthday, and we’re giving back with CoinJar Rewards – our loyalty program designed to reward CoinJar members for using our services. From making a bitcoin conversion, to spending money with CoinJar Swipe, users will now enjoy real-time points for engaging with the CoinJar platform.

CoinJar Rewards joins our family together with financial technology products that have seen over 70,000 users and one of the longest track records of digital currency service in Australia. This bundle includes:

CoinJar Touch, our native mobile apps on Android and iOS
The first digital currency enabled EFTPOS card CoinJar Swipe
Award-winning Hedged Accounts which protect bitcoin against currency fluctuations
Bitcoin purchases using credit/debit cards in 20 European countries
Full-featured wallet and exchange services

In addition to product development over the years, we’ve also given back to the community by:

Halving our fees, making us one of the most value for money exchanges in Australia (independently verified)
Contributing to government discussion on digital currency and FinTech
Bringing one of the world’s best industry speakers, Andreas Antonopolous, to Australia as part of our Bitcoin Address events in Melbourne and Sydney
Joined and learnt from some of the world’s best startups in Silicon Valley at BoostVC and London’s Level39 co-working space

In the time it’s taken some companies to get to market, we’ve helped establish a thriving industry, notably in Australia — one that is now looked to as a source of innovation for blockchain technology.

We hope that you love using CoinJar Rewards and continue to reap the benefits of using tools built with the latest technologies and with users in mind.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Are CoinJar points backed by a distributed ledger or blockchain?
It is supported but not yet implemented. We have larger plans for this product, including the ability to use it across different merchants and interoperability between multiple loyalty programs. We will soon be releasing API documentation on this product for developers and business to create their own reward experiences.

What can you redeem CoinJar Points for?
At launch, you can use CoinJar points to save on exchange fees or redeem a free CoinJar Swipe. There are also plenty of redemption options on our Rewards Store including VPN Secure, Fastmail subscriptions and gift cards. CoinJar Points are not money and will not be redeemable for bitcoin or cash.

How can I gain access to CoinJar Rewards?
You will need to have a verified CoinJar account and activate Rewards on your home screen once you sign-in.

For more information on CoinJar Rewards and a full table of convertibility, please refer to our Knowledge Base.