Coinplug to Roll Out World’s Biggest Convenience Store Bitcoin Scheme

South Korean bitcoin services company Coinplug is rolling out pre-paid bitcoin gift cards to around 24,000 convenience stories across the country, with 8,000 7-Eleven stores already participating.
The company says its ‘okBitcard’ offering will be on sale in other major chains by the end of January. With those numbers, it will be the most widespread distribution of its kind in the world to date.
Cards are printed with fiat values of 10,000, 30,000 and 50,000 South Korean won (approximately $10, $30 and $50). To protect against theft and deal with bitcoin’s unpredictable price, the cards are activated only at point-of-sale.
okBitcard comes hot on the heels of another convenience store-based service in Asia: BitoEX’s integration with 5,000 in-store kiosks in Taiwan. By selling physical cards, Coinplug is eliminating the need for customers to learn how to use the kiosks or use SMS messages to authenticate purchases.

This post was published at Coin Desk on January 15, 2015.