Gift cards already have very little use other than incentivizing spending at select retailers. Their only purpose is to make gift-givers feel a little less bad since they couldn’t think of an actual item to give someone. Still, at least you know their worth. It’s written on the card. Though if you give somebody a crypto gift card, the money inside could be worth $100 one day, then $20 the next.
That hasn’t stopped the company Giftcoin from announcing what it called the first digital gift card linked to cryptocurrency, rather than a fixed dollar amount. It also requires users to access a specific Giftcoin app to use their newly acquired funds at select retailers.
Crypto has already been shown to be terrible for actually buying things because its price is so volatile. Still, in the company’s release, CEO Justin Lockwood first called crypto a “get-rich-quick scheme for crypto bros” before adding “There is nothing that exists today that gives people a fun and easy way to give and spend crypto at their favorite stores… Giftcoin is “crypto for the rest of us.” So, why would I want to use crypto if I already have money I know with far more certainty will maintain its value from one day to the next?