Circle bitcoin wallet
The biggest advantage of all appears when a Circle customer wishes to send money to or from someone in a foreign country. Unlike banks, Western Union, and other traditional money transfer services, Circle does not charge fees to send money overseas. Circle is taking security seriously. The company says it has invested in military-grade hardware as well as in sophisticated multiple-signature architecture for authorizing transactions and cold-storage wallets.
It will also provide customers with free insurance from theft. All customer money will be held in reserve although not in segregated accounts , and the business is regulated as a money transmitter. Bitcoin links to bank accounts and to credit cards. Most banks do not charge fees to transfer funds but Visa and MasterCard both charge cash advance fees to make deposits into another service, such as Circle.
In most cases, it is better to make deposits from a linked bank account where you will not be charged cash advance fees. Circle helps customers keep track of their Bitcoin holdings in order to comply with the IRS guidance issued this year that ruled Bitcoin is a commodity and subject to capital-gains taxes. Your current balance in the Circle account may be displayed either in Bitcoins or in a number of other currencies.
I chose to display my balance in both Bitcoins and in U. The funds are actually kept in Bitcoins and the balance that is to be displayed is calculated by using the current exchange rate. I downloaded the Circle app for iPhone and quickly configured it.
I have used several other Bitcoin apps before and the Circle app was loosely similar. I did have to provide my full name, address, email address, and cell phone number so that I could receive text messages concerning Circle deposits, withdrawals, and similar notices. I then linked my checking account by entering the account name, routing number, and account number. A message appeared stating that two tiny deposits would be made to my checking account and that I would have to verify them once the deposits appeared in my checking account.
This is expected to require one to three business days. Not wanting to wait, I then transferred a small amount of Bitcoin from a different Bitcoin wallet I have to the new Bitcoin address created by Circle. The funds appeared in my Circle app within a few minutes. Funds can be sent to another person by scanning a QR code or by specifying a Bitcoin address or an email address.
The funds are always sent in Bitcoins so it is up to the recipient to receive the funds and to convert the Bitcoins to his or her local currency, if desired. Circle appears to be a well-thought-out application.
I found it to be extremely extremely easy to use. Perhaps the best feature of all is the ability to send funds anywhere in the world free of charge. There are no transfer fees or currency exchange fees. It also lets people send local currency to other digital wallets over the bitcoin blockchain. That's the initial focus of its new open source project, Spark: Spark is a set of additions to the protocol that provides a way for digital wallets to exchange value using blockchains, including the bitcoin blockchain, and settlement layers.
Because Spark is open source, any developer can use and implement the software. Circle said it intends to work closely with similarly minded ecosystem participants to advance the technology and integrate it with additional public and private blockchains. The first implementation of Spark will be through two new partnerships, one with a Korean company called Korbit and the other with a Philippine company, Coins. Both remittance companies will be able to implement Circle's Spark application programming interfaces to allow U.
The experience would have "the speed, security and cost efficiency of distributed ledgers, but with a pure fiat-to-fiat consumer experience" and is compliant with international KYC and AML standards. Circle Pay also introduced new messaging capabilities. The app is now organized around people instead of transactions, it said. Payments exist in an ongoing conversation between the sender and receiver, a function they likened to the more widely popular messaging WeChat and WhatsApp.