BTCDelta Is Leading the Charge to Bring Bitcoin to Mainstream Consumers

Credit: Casascius

Corporations and small entrepreneurs around the world are making Bitcoin more accessible and incorporating the digital currency into the market every day. A Bitcoin wallet, Coin Pocket, showed up on Apple's app store for the first time yesterday. Expedia just became the first major travel agency to accept Bitcoin last week. Now Delta Financial wants to bring the mainstream consumer a service that is essential to any capital market—savings accounts.

BTCDelta is a web service that allows you to invest both Bitcoin and U.S. dollars (USD). Interest rates on the savings accounts will be in constant fluctuation.

BTCDelta also provides a marginal trading platform to help people make money by trading Bitcoin against the dollar. The system they have in place ensures liquidity, finds the best prices on reliable Bitcoin exchanges, and offers 5x leverage to individuals that are experienced in currency trading. Once a person makes a marginal deposit, BTCDelta will lend up to five times the deposited amount to that person for trading. The investor will then be able to take both short and long positions on the currencies, switching value in between Bitcoin accounts and USD accounts depnding on whether he or she thinks the Bitcoin price will go up or down. Euwyn Poon, co-founder of the company, told Coindesk, "So deposit accounts reward savers, and on the flip side, active margin traders can take out loans with up to five times leverage."

Following the disaster at Mt. Gox, where hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin mysteriously disappeared, people are wary of giving up control over their Bitcoin. After all, one of the most appealing aspects of the digital currency is its decentralized nature. BTCDelta says it is ensuring protection from theft by keeping most of the funds off-line in cold storage, using encrypted SSL (HTTPS), and allowing investors to use two-factor authentication for added security. 

Bitcoin has maintained a position on the fringe of our economy for most of its existence, but services such as BTCDelta—along with Bitcoin wallets on smartphones and acceptance by prominent companies—will play an enormous role in the introduction of digital currencies into mainstream society. 

Comments

[SweatingGin]

Is this a press release? A skeptical eye to 5% interest per 24 hour period would be nice. I call bullshit.

[Corning]

What the fuck?

Lots of Bitcoin exchanges already offer these kinds of services.

This reads more like an paid advertizement then an article.

[Another David]

Any plans to cover GHash's ascension to Central Bank Of Bitcoin, and how the case for digital currency changes now that it's not decentralized anymore?

Or just infomercials?

[SweatingGin]

I'm not sure it really changes much. If they tried to do 51% attacks, they would devalue/destroy their source of income.

Other pools have hit 51% before, too.

Doesn't give any ability to change the rules/rate of new issuance/etc.

[bassjoe]

Considering the pool has dropped to 30-35% since their flirtation with 50%, not really sure what your point is.

[bassjoe]

Interest rates will be in constant fluctuation, but there is a guaranteed minimum effective interest rate of 5 percent.

Ugh. Didn't Washington Mutual provide 5% savings accounts before going belly up in a spectacular way? Not exactly the sign of a well-managed company, IMO...

[bassjoe]

Oh wow, over 24 hours. WTF??? Seriously.

[Corning]

I think it is 5% annual interest rate over a 1 day period.

So what ever 5% divided by 365 is.

[Corning]

I think you have to make your money/bitcoins available for loan to speculators playing the market on margins...and then that loan has to be picked up by a borrower for you to get your interest.

BTCDelta is not paying you the borrowers are. BTCDelta just calculates the fees and gives you your cut after the deal is done.

Bitfinix does this as well...or at least what I have read. Never actually tried it.