Send Bitcoin to PayPal

Last month we posted about the launch of TipperCoin,a new Twitter based product for sending bitcoin tips to other Twitter users. Focused on tipping bitcoins to tweeters,TipperCoin is tied to the trend of digital currency tips that have become a popular way to reward other users as well as introduce newbies to bitcoins.

Taking Twitter based payments a step further is PikaPay. Established in 2011,PikaPay is the longest established provider of twitter based bitcoin payments. If I had to describe PikaPay in a few words,it would be ‘PayPal 2.0’. PayPal brought to the world the ability to send money to anyone with an email. What PikaPay does is provide similar abilities to send bitcoins to anyone with a Twitter account. PayPal is based on fiat currency transfers by transposing its services alongside traditional financial institutions and banks. Simiarly,PikaPay can be considered the digital currency version of the same attributes of Paypal,but instead is linked to the blockchain.

PikaPay is the invention of Joris Bontje and Richard Kohl,two early bitcoin adopters who are active in the Amsterdam bitcoin community. Discussing the product’s history,Kohl explained to Digital Currency Magnates that it was initially called PayBitBack when it was launched in 2011 and had attracted the use of some of Twitter’s engineers. Kohl continue by stating that after its initial success,the two founders spent the next two years “to build a safe and stable service that goes beyond the “hobbyist” stage.” According to Kohl,the result is that now “PikaPay is built on an an open enterprise-grade developer’s API that is secure enough to be used as a realtime transaction platform.”

Using PikaPay,users simply connect their Twitter account,which automatically creates them a PikaPay account. Once connected,PikaPay can be used to send payments to other Twitter users as well as make bitcoin requests. PikaPay accounts can be funded by transferring bitcoins or purchased by Belgium and Netherlands users of iDEAL direct debit. According to Kohl,bitcoin based deposits appear in user wallets after only one confirmation.