It is fair to state that Bitcoin has made it easy for people to buy and sell products, services, investments and content online. Nevertheless, if you have some bitcoins in your wallet, it is still possible to wonder where you can spend them online.
The good news, however, is that the list of merchants accepting cryptocurrencies is growing by the day.
1. Online shopping
Some of the notable names in this regard include Overstock.com, Rakuten Inc, Tiger Direct and Microsoft Inc. And the things to buy include anything from AAA batteries, ebooks, electronics, video games, pillows and house drapings.
It is also now possible to book airline tickets online and make payments using bitcoins. One service provider making this possible is CheapAir.com, an online travel agency. Currently, the company lets you book flights to numerous destinations and make reservations to over 200,000 hotels.
The other travel company that accepts Bitcoin is Expedia, and makes close to 45,000 hotels available to you.
2. Acquiring Investment
You can also spend bitcoins to diversify your investment portfolio. That includes buying gold bullion and precious metals through licensed brokers.
AmagiMetals,is one of the global e-commerce precious and base metal dealers that accepts bitcoin as payment for precious metals. SchiffGold, a veteran gold and silver merchant, also accepts bitcoin for financial advice and vault services.
Using bitcoins to purchase a 1000-year-old store of value does not sound like a bad idea at all!
3. Gambling and e-sporting
If you love blackjack and casino odds, then your bitcoins can come in handy. There are numerous online casinos that operate using cryptocurrencies. One such establishment is Vera & John, a licensed and regulated online casino.
Bitcoin and altcoins make it easy to deposit bets and withdraw winnings as compared to traditional payment systems.
For video gamers, Twitch.tv, an online video streaming platform, accepts bitcoin for payment. Twitch lets you watch videos of other gamers playing live. It is so popular that Google paid $1 billion for it.
Visitors and regulars to its site can pay for subscriptions using bitcoin.
4. Tipping and donating
ChangeTip, an integrated online bitcoin tipping service has made it possible to appreciate the effort of others online by sending them small amounts of bitcoin. This could be for an awesome tweet, interesting blog post or even a video they created.
The service is currently found on major social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit.
You may as well decide to spend your bitcoins towards a cause that you deeply care about. Bitcoin donations, unlike with the traditional payment methods, are free and take less than a minute to any country in the world.
BitPay, for example, enables charities to accept Bitcoin donations through their website in one click. Not only will you be contributing to a charity of your choice, but the process will cost you close to zero.
BitGive is the first IRS tax-exempt charity that accepts Bitcoin donations.
Because transmitting bitcoins are almost free, all the places where you can pay using bitcoin, the prices are almost always cheaper than when you pay with other payment methods.
