When you check out at pretty much any store, look around and you’re likely to see racks full of gift cards. In Austria, there’s a different type of gift card on those racks: Bitcoinbon. The Bitcoinbon card is sold at more than 4,000 gas stations and kiosks in Austria and is an easy and fast way to purchase cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum. Beginning next week, users will be able to redeem their cards for Dash, too.

Easy peasy

The way it works is simple and brilliant. Suppose you have 100 euros that you want to use to purchase Dash. You simply walk into a store or up to a kiosk, hand over 100 euros and receive a 100 euro Bitcoinbon card. Once purchased, you input a code from the card onto the Coinfinity website and the appropriate amount of Dash is purchased at market rates and moved to your online wallet.

D-A-CH

Dash Embassy D-A-CH is a DAO funded by the Dash network, just like Dash Core Group and Dash Force. The group seeks to promote the adoption of Dash in German-speaking nations, particularly Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Dash Embassy promotes and educates consumers and merchants both online and off.

It was Dash Embassy who setup the partnership with Coinfinity. Jan Meyer, founder of D-A-CH, writes of the partnership:

“We are delighted that Coinfinity has chosen to offer Dash as a crypto currency designed to work as  an alternative to cash at the point of sale. The prepaid cards are creating the possibility to buy Dash  in Austria directly at the POS. From our perspective, this is an important step in the right direction.”

What about Germany?

Unfortunately, the Bitcoinbon is not yet available in Germany due to EU restrictions. In fact, it wouldn’t be availble in Austria, either, except for a loophole in EU regulations that allows Bitcoin ATM operators like Coinfinity to operate in Austria without a banking license. Despite this hurdle, Meyer has hopes for the future:

“We would be thrilled, if German  authorities would follow this lead and talk to us and companies like Coinfinity about creating a legal  framework for the purchase of Dash and other cryptocurrencies that meets the security requirements that the authorities are concerned with.”