Bottlepay Payment App allows its users to pay bitcoin via Twitter, has announced its full launch after leaving beta mode.
The team stated that “unlike other digital payment platforms such as PayPal and Revolut, whose users cannot currently spend or withdraw their BTC, Bottlepay allows its users to withdraw, deposit or spend their BTC on tangible goods anywhere in the world with a single slide.”
A single tweet — for example “@bottlepay send 1,000 sats (the smallest unit of Bitcoin) to @twitteruser” — will instantly move the specified quantity of Bitcoin from one user’s account to another.
Bottlepay says it is planning to roll out the functionality to other social channels. In the future, Bottlepay will also allow users to spend and transfer money on Reddit, Discord, Twitch, Telegram, and Mastodon.
Given the extent to which Bitcoin transaction fees exploded from 2020 into 2021, the coin’s suitability for use in a daily, social payments app could reasonably be brought into question. Bottlepay avoids Bitcoin’s high transaction fees by using the Lightning Network. It is a second-layer solution that avoids network traffic by taking BTC transactions off-chain.
Bottlepay last month raised £11 million in a seed funding round. It backed by British fund manager Alan Howard, present and former Goldman Sachs partners, FinTech Collective and Nydig. The product gained over 20,000 users for a beta version of the app with no marketing. The firm says that since the app launched last month, users have already made total transactions of more than £1.7m.
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Bottlepay will be adding more conventional currencies soon, with support for the euro up next. The ultimate goal is to provide a low-cost alternative to established brands like Wise and Currencyfair and others.
“Today’s consumers want the power to move their money immediately, from anywhere in the world. Bottlepay’s social Bitcoin payments are a much-needed update on the clunky, outdated payment systems available up until now, and a leap towards smoother, easier transactions,” said Bottlepay CEO Mark Webster.
