Windows Phone Central Store now accepting Bitcoin!

We've had a lot of demand from users to begin accepting Bitcoin at the Windows Phone Central Store, and today I'm happy to announce that support is here! Just in time for the holidays, Bitcoin users can now checkout with the digital currency at the Windows Phone Central Store and our other Mobile Nations stores including ShopAndroid, the iMore Store and ShopCrackBerry.

To kick off the Bitcoin support, we've even extended our Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale to run a full week. That means until this Friday, December 6th at midnight PST tonight, you can save 25% on ALL orders using coupon code CYBER13.

Take me to the Windows Phone Central Store!

Using Bitcoin Checkout at the Windows Phone Central Store

After selecting items to purchase, simply visit your cart. On the cart page there is a Pay with Bitcoin button. Look for the button below your checkout Total. Simply click the Pay with Bitcoin button and follow the instructions on the pages that follow.

Woah. What's all this Bitcoin stuff about?

Bitcoin is making lots of headlines these days, and it can be a confusing concept to grasp at first until you read up on it and it "clicks". Long story short, Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer online financial network and a digital currency (that also goes by the name Bitcoin). There's no middle man with Bitcoin. Instead, Bitcoin payments are sent over the network directly from sender to receiver and the management of the transactions is carried out by the collectively by the network. The infographic below provides a good walk through (more info on Wikipedia and Bitcoin.org).

Infographic by bpalacio@mac.com (opens in new tab).

Why support Bitcoin?

That's an easy one. We love technology, we love our users and we love choice. Nobody quite knows where Bitcoin will go, but it has a real community movement behind it and we have customers asking for it, so we're happy to support it and be part of the story as it continues to evolve!

66 Comments

I tried to get into bitcoin but couldn't generate any revenue. Even through the browser generator.
Doesn't the value of your bitcoin increase over time. I heard about someone having $20 worth of bitcoins when it first started and now its worth thousands or something...
Yeah, I bought some bitcoins at $80 a coin. Now they're worth over $1,100 a coin on some exchanges. Get in now while you can, it's only going up from here - as more and more people adopt it, the value will skyrocket.
I was under the impression that with silkroad dead, bitcoins pretty much are doomed unless they get universal adoption everywhere, and quickly.
After silkroad episode, the value of bitcoin has only been rising. But Silkroad wasn't taken down because of bitcoin as media likes to portray it. Main reason was forged legal documents and guns, bitcoin was just a side point.
Silk Road was taken down because of illegal trade. BTC took a hit after that because of bad press, but then quickly recovered and has since grown more than 1,000%. This is the beginning. It's just now entering the public's view. This is Apple stock at $75 a share.
BTC didn't take a hit because of bad press, and no news article that I ever saw blamed btc for silk road going down (that doesn't even make sense). BTC took a hit because silk road was the only place that actually accepted bitcoin and moved the currency around- without it, there are only small insignificant places like wpcentral's store, and unless widespread adoption happens the coins will not circulate and the currency will stagnate.
Bitcoins are being accepted in more places every day. Wordpress was one of the first big websites ot use it, Silk Road was mostly for illegal goods. Bitmit has unfortunately closed down, but Coingig is still going strong, and Reddit has a huge BTC marketplace. The only thing I can see being a potential problem with bitcoin is that people will hoard it instead of spending it, but with good enough deals, anybody will spend anything. If you just want a big list, look here: https://www.spendbitcoins.com/places/
As more people adopt it, the value will actually plummet as more and more people will start selling and buying, the market will be flooded. This however will not happen for a few years. My suggestion is to wait it out till it drops below 200 again, because there is no way it will go above $1100.
Many analysts are predicting far greater growth, actually, as adoption becomes wider and wider. As more and more people buy bitcoin and sell products for bitcoin, and the currency sees wider adoption, the number of users will increase while the number of actual bitcoins in circulation will remain relatively constant (though GRADUALLY increasing through mining)... The simple laws of supply and demand dictate that when more people want a commodity that remains at a static level, the price of that commodity will increase. ...which is what we're seeing. ...and this is just the beginning. I don't think we'll see $200 coins ever again.
$1,100 IS THE STARTING PRICE? I'm not spending $1,100 for a bitcoin. Seriously, you could buy half the store with one bitcoin, or am I doing it wrong?
Its currency. Just like you dont need to buy 1USD to have currency. You can get a penny in US currency. You can buy 0.01 bitcoin. If what you said was how it worked you'd have to spend 1.1k to buy anything.
Bitcoins are divisible to up to 8 decimal places. You could buy 0.01 BTC for around $10, for example.
Not quite. The rate Bitcoins are generated at is steadily decreasing; the price will only go up if people decide they are worth more against the USD.
Same, I couldn't figure out how to get bitcoins.
Buy them or mine them. Easier and quicker to buy, mining them takes time and hardware.
A browser miner in JavaScript will be too slow to mine any coins. You will need to buy specialized mining hardware to make a reasonable return. It is easier to buy Bitcoin or win a small amount online (e.g. http://freebitco.in/?r=86344 )
Buying hardware to mine is a pointless venture too. You can't compete with the other miners, so you'll only trickle in pennies, which will not cover the cost of the electric bill mining will give you, let alone the cost of the parts.
I just tried that and I got .017 bitcoins. Did I just win like 20 bucks?
Check at http://preev.com/ Congratulations! Payouts are every Monday.
Try other cryptocurrencies...
Any chance of getting the wpc store built into the app?
+920
Awesome. I've been into bitcoin for about 8 months now, I wish I'd heard about it sooner. So stoked to see more businesses accepting it!
Add litecoin!
Why?
So more people can get tricked into the new dot.com hype...
It's growing fairly rapidly. I bought at $10 last week and it's up $32. And, right now, it's easier to mine than bitcoin.
That is true, but that is what makes it worse than Bitcoin. If you don't pay for power it's still a good idea though!
I guess I could always trade LTC for BTC then buy stuff.
My brother told me about bitcoin in 2009. I was stupid enough to pass it. Sometimes, we make really stupid decisions.
I'm still very confused by bitcoin, but I'm glad you guys added it for the people who do!
Yeah I'm confused about it too. Why not just use cash money? Is it supposed to be an international currency?
The US Government approved Bitcoin. So its bound to now fail like our Federal Reserve.
Bitcoin itself is extremely tamper resistent due to its proof-of-work system. Fortunately, US exchanges are no longer the only game in town.
What do you mean by "our" Federal Reserve? The Federal Reserve is a private company, it's like saying you bought a new book at OUR Amazon.com.
The most controversial article I've seen on WPC. Interesting
Where else can you buy goods with them? Can you convert them from bitcoins into usd or any other government currency?
You can convert between currencies at exchanges such as mt.gox. Also look at gyft for spending your coins almost anywhere!
Interesting :) thanks
Yes, there are several BTC to money exchanges.
Visit Bitcoin.org for more info on it. Use to mine a little back in the day, now getting back into it since the value is up and can pay for its cost in electricity. Although I hope it continues being popular and when the bubble bursts it isn't more than a %30 drop.
I don't think there'll be much more than a 30% drop, if indeed there is one. Been over a thousand for like a week now. Remember, this is the beginning. Mini bubbles will come and go, such is the nature of the stuff... but big-picture, people are just now hearing of bitcoin. It's the new internet.
Don't forget to try Bitcoin for Windows Phone.
Looks like a nice app, but without the source code I would advise against it.
Same here. I've used it, it's pretty neat, but I don't know about trusting it without seeing it, and I found no way to contact the developer.
I'm the developer. My contact info is in the about section (at least in the latest version).
I know you're the developer, that's why I made the other reply to you. I checked the app description, tried to track you across linkedin and such, never did see an email address. I don't think I got to the about section, but it's kind of lame that you have to install the app and set it up to find out how to contact you.
What do you suggest?
Put your email address (or an app specific one separate from your personal inbox) in the app description. That's what most independent devs seem to do.
Not likely, buddy, nice try. Notice how at least one reviewer had his coins stolen? DO NOT GIVE YOUR WALLET TO ANYBODY, EVER, FOR ANY REASON.
The coins could have been stolen another way, such as when accessing the web wallet on a PC. The point still stands though.
Developer of Bitcoin for Windows Phone here. That's only 1 guy. He never contacted me about this issue. For all I know he might be a troll. But I can't be sure. Your advice is sound, but like everything, it's a matter of compromise. Either you don't have access to a Bitcoin wallet on your Windows Phone, either you do but take the risk that the guy steals/lose all your money. Putting $5-10 in that wallet is probably a good compromise.
I tried your app out. Why don't you have an email address listed anywhere?
The email/twitter contact info is in the about section of the latest update. Sorry about that.
I still don't see a point to another currency. The bitcoin site talks about privacy and securtiy. You still need to provide your name and address to receive merchandise and you are still subjected to possible fraud if a seller doesn't ship the goods you bought. With a credit card, the credit card company takes teh hit on any fraidulent transactions. It seems I am more protected by using a credit card. The only advantage I see is lower transaction fees for merchants. Regular money is accepted everywhere and bitcoins are limited. I don't get why people decided a digital currency was necessary.
An excellent example is the government money seizures in Cyprus. If you store your wealth in Bitcoin securely, then it is very difficult for anyone to take them off of you. Of course the volatility will have to go down for this to be generally a good idea!
The problem with the existing currency is that the money supply is controlled by a very small group of individuals who are only interested in enriching themselves and their cronies. The value of your hard-earned dollar can be eroded by "Quantitative Easing", or other ways of printing money. Bitcoin offers an alternative currency without this problem. The REAL problem is if bitcoin ever started to REALLY take off as currency, the governments around the world would ban/block it, since it removes a tremendous amount of money and power from their hands.
That's not the way some markets work anymore. Now, first you create the product and then people create the necessity. I've got no problem whatsoever with sites offering the opportunity for using bitcoin, as long as they keep all the other means of paying.
Can you really stand behind that first statement ("a lot of demand") or are you just going for page hits?
Damn it!! I was hoping for a link to download bitcoins in the place where the download app usually is.
This is gambling, not investing. Buy coin if you have cash to burn as this could be squashed in an instant once the winkles decide to cash out their billion.
Those fools don't have a drop in the bucket. You should learn more about it before you start trashing it.
For those who'd like to buy bitcoins: one of the places where you can buy them is kraken.com (that's where I trade in cryptocurrencies). I'm actually working on a Windows Phone 8 app for them :) Just submitted version 1.0: http://i.imgur.com/DqVyFcp.gif
Send me an email sam@wpcentral.com :)
Awesome!

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