Why I Love Bitcoin (and Litecoin Too)

I will never forget the first time I heard about Bitcoin. Someone I followed on Quora posted the We Use Coins “What is Bitcoin” video and I was immediately intrigued. Here was something that could change the world!

http://youtu.be/Um63OQz3bjo

A year passed and I became a technology company founder thrown into the exciting environment of Silicon Valley. My company, Tealet, was my savvy-hippie way to help tea grower friends make more money selling their tea on the internet. As soon as we arrived in Silicon Valley I joked that one day soon we would be operating our entire business on Bitcoin. Investors and other founders laughed at these jokes as they thought it was an absolute pipedream. Little did I know that things would change so quickly.

In the Spring of 2013 my team moved back to Honolulu, Hawaii after our stay at the 500 Startups accelerator. In desperate need for a developer to help us build new features for our website we hired young, energetic Cody Moniz, someone that taught himself how to code. He didn’t have a CS degree and spent the past three years working in customer service in the airline industry. To most standards it was a dumb move for any startup, but I went with my gut and trusted him.

Elyse and Cody have a Tetris Tea Party to celebrate the launch of Bitcoin payments at www.tealet.com

He was amazing, he built every idea I had, and did it all without making mistakes. Towards the end of his contract with us I noticed on the bottom of his Trello task list “Bitcoin”. He was a Bitcoin fanatic, always keeping us up to date on the current buy price of Bitcoin and various applications of the cryptocurrency on the internet. Since he had done such a great job I went ahead and bumped the Bitcoin item up to the top of his list and with great excitement he had us up and running with Coinbase Coinbaseas a payment processor within the week.

Before doing the final push with Coinbase I met up with old friend and fellow Shidler College of Business MBA alum Warren Togami. As a lead developer for Litecoin Warren had much advice to give and eased much of my tension of the potential clusterf*ck that I thought Bitcoin would become. Thanks to him we had a smooth launch and were able to tell the right people in the right way about purchasing farm-direct tea with Bitcoin. Warren was also involved with the recent launch of Tealet’s custom Litecoin payment processor.

Since launching Bitcoin and Litecoin payment we have seen a dramatic increase in sales. Of our total sales since launch 45% have come in the form of Bitcoin. We received nearly 4 Bitcoin on Bitcoin Black Friday! This is, of course, a very important reason why I love Bitcoin. Coinbase charges a 1% fee (0% fee promotion for first $1MM in transactions) to accept payment versus the about 3% fee charged by credit card processors and Paypal. In addition, we are exploring ways to reduce 10% foreign currency exchange/processing fees to 1% using Bitcoin payment.

I love Bitcoin for so much more. I love it for its transparent and efficient nature. I love that it challenges people to rethink our current economic and political situation. I love that my Mom, friends, and business partners email me any article good/controversial about Bitcoin (it’s got them rethinking!). Perhaps what I love the most about Bitcoin is the community behind it.

In December 2013 I attended my first Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas. I got to meet the people and companies behind Bitcoin. Never in my life have I been among a group of peers that cared about something so much that they were willing to take risks and invest so much of their energy and intelligence to bring more transparency and efficiency to our global financial systems. It reminds me of the community at Burning Man, everyone is bringing their A-game to make Bitcoin work and produce something meaningful.

Bitcoin and Litecoin are more than things. They are an idea which involves collaboration of many types of people, businesses, and organizations. I would like to talk about a few now:

Coinbase CoinbaseCoinbaseCoinbaseCoinbase Coinbase— This Y-Combinator-backed company has quickly become one of the more popular Bitcoin companies in San Francisco. They just announced a raise of $25M which is big time for a startup of their age. What I have been the most surprised about this company is the level of humility they have with developing their business. We were invited to join the team for lunch where we met co-founders Brian and Fred among the rest of the team and we discussed the future of Bitcoin over Thai food in their small SOMA office (there was tea there too!).

Photo taken at the BFL booth at Inside Bitcoins Las Vegas with Dave, Josh, & Elyse (as The Tea Fairy)

Butterfly Labs — Tealet doesn’t work directly with Butterfly Labs (BFL), but we do keep some of their team energized with our tea. This hardware company has grown into one of the largest Bitcoin companies in the world from Kansas. I met Josh, COO, at the Las Vegas Bitcoin conference as he was our very first Bitcoin customer when we launched with Coinbase. Since then I have become friends with BFL team members Dave, Sonny, and their international team of engineers when they returned to Las Vegas to showcase their mining hardware and new Bitsafe Bitcoin hardware wallet at CES in January 2014.

Blockchain.info — At CES I also met Alyson and George of Blockchain.info. We had much to talk about in terms of bringing awareness to Bitcoin. This is perhaps one of the most enjoyable responsibilities of being a Bitcoiner. How do you bring awareness to the public and inspire excitement for more people to get a Bitcoin wallet and begin purchasing their first Bitcoin. Alyson, George, and the entire Blockchain.info team are doing wonders for building a brand for Bitcoin and for getting more people educated and involved.

BitPay — The final company that I connected with at CES was BitPay. BitPay’s CEO Tony is full of energy and it was cool to see him at the Bitcoin booth at CES all three days interacting with the public. For how much Bitcoin has been in the press the past few months I was shocked to see how few attendees at CES knew what Bitcoin was. There was always a constant flow of people asking questions at the booth, but it was great to see people like Tony whom I would assume are “too busy” to interact with the public and really show what the Bitcoin community is about.

Litecoin — As I mentioned earlier I went to school with a Litecoin developer who has done much to educate me about Bitcoin and Litecoin. This relationship has opened Tealet up to the Litecoin community as we have become sponsors of the Litecoin Development Project. A portion of our Litecoin profits will be donated so the network can be strengthened. So far I have really enjoyed my interactions with the community and look forward to doing more.

Bitcoin Meetup Groups — Perhaps the members of the community with the most importance are the grassroots, localized communities of cryptocurrency enthusiasts. I was connected to Bitcoin Hawaii while living in Hawaii and really appreciated the regular workshops they held, welcoming members of the public to come learn about Bitcoin. I have also connected with the Las Vegas Bitcoin community which continues to be a great source of inspiration. We have even connected with communities around the world, such as India. Through reddit I connected with Natasha at Unobit Solutions Pvt. Ltd. the group that put on the first Bitcoin conference in India. She has been instrumental in finding answers for our questions regarding sending payment to our growers in India with Bitcoin. I’m sure there is a Bitcoin community in your area and if you are interested in learning more or expanding your network you should definitely try to hook up with one!

This is only the start of my love for Bitcoin (and Litecoin). If you have any questions about how Bitcoin or Litecoin can help your business or life please feel free to email me at elyse@tealet.com. I look forward to getting the conversation going!