BitAccess Releases ‘Instant’ Transactions Avoiding Block Waiting

2016. Feb. 25. 22:00

Canadian BTM startup BitAccess has revealed a method for purchasing bitcoins without waiting for transactions to be confirmed.

Also read: Bitcoin Payment Terminals vs Bitcoin ATMs: Which is More Convenient?

BitAccess Cash: No Stumbling Blocks?

The tool, called BitAccess Cash, uses the company’s international network of BTMs to allow users to ‘cash out’ instantly once payment has been sent using a dedicated app.

BitAccess, which recently published an investigation on its blog testing transaction processing times using different wallets, found that in addition to fees, the speed with which transactions were confirmed also depended on the arbitrary time it took for blocks to be formed.

As such, BitAccess Cash was unveiled as one solution for users who require instant conversion at a more-or-less known exchange rate. This is particularly noteworthy for mobile wallet users, as the majority of mobile wallets do not allow transaction fees to be altered manually. While the latency period involved could potentially produce risk of exchange rate fluctuation, BitAccess has built-in mitigation in the form of hedging.

“There is no additional risk,” CEO Moe Adham told Bitcoin.com in emailed comments, continuing:

When the customer sends bitcoin to the BTM or cash.bitaccess.co, a trade is placed on the BTM’s operator exchange account immediately. Therefore, the price is hedged awaiting confirmation. The customer always receives the price they are quoted at the time of the transaction.

The crackdown on transaction waiting times has already been addressed this year by the launch of wallet provider BitGo’s “Instant” service. The tool allows merchants to accept BTC payments and process them for users instantly, with BitGo assuring the validity of transactions and guarding against double spending via a multikey process.

“When someone wants to send an instant transaction, we do a certain amount of risk checks. We create a guarantee that is cryptographically signed by us that rides along with the transaction,” CTO Ben Davenport told CoinDesk following the release in January.

He added that any recipients left without funds would be fully refunded out of BitGo’s own pocket.

Meanwhile, the capacity issues facing Bitcoin continue to weigh on the propagation of the currency. Entrepreneur Roger Ver tweeted yesterday that large firms were even “[postponing] involvement with Bitcoin because there isn’t currently capacity for it to grow,” noting the network was only a matter of weeks away from the maximum block size limit of 1 megabyte.

Large firms are choosing to postpone involvement with Bitcoin because there isn't currently capacity for it to grow. pic.twitter.com/HpVDQ9UXBM

— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) February 24, 2016