Chip Chap, the app that allows users to convert their money, wants to spread bitcoin throughout Europe. The app is known for tying bitcoin to a network of thousands of ATMs in Spain. The team is quick to pick up another country. Now the app can be used with roughly 4,000 Polish ATMs.
Chip Chap connects prepayment systems with cryptocurrencies. The Android app supports a range of payment systems and vouchers, like Bitcoin, Ukash, HalCash, PaysafeCard, and many others. These vouchers don't require a bank account or a credit card. Users can trade their currency for bitcoin, and then convert their bitcoin into the vouchers. It works in Spain, Poland, France, England and Mexico. The conversions are all done by smartphone.
Users can also cash out the vouchers into cash at participating ATMs. The team claims the app works with a network of over 10,000 ATMs on Spain's Telepay network, ranging from ING Direct to Euronet ATMs. Although, remember, now it works in Poland too.
“With this app you can withdraw your bitcoins in the ATM for now,” the home screen of the app reads, “and much more in the future.”
There are many uses for this, one being pseudo-privacy. Users select their country on the blue Chip Chap app, punch in their phone number and withdrawal amount, and send bitcoin to an address. Then they receive a code that they can punch into an ATM to redeem their cash.
The Chip Chap team is intent on edging cryptocurrencies into everyday use. Users can send money to friends and family via social networks. Because the app connects bitcoin with vouchers systems across the world, it has global appeal.
They also have ambitions of a “global exchange” and of leveraging cryptocurrencies to build a new economy. The app is the brainchild of Entropy Factory, a bitcoin incubator located in the town of Les Coves de Vinromá in Castellón, Spain. Entropy Factory wants to reduce the influence of intermediaries, like banks and governments, in order to empower people. They want to build a new socio-economic model.
With such lofty ambitions, it only makes sense that they partnered with Dark Wallet. The wallet, currently in alpha 8, aims to ensure that bitcoin transactions are private, and uses Chip Chap so that users can withdraw their bitcoin in cash at the ATM network in Spain, and now in Poland.
Surprisingly, the app is compliant with global Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financial Terrorism laws. Bitcoin companies spend time and money navigating the uncertain regulatory climate. But since Chip Chap does not store third-party funds—it simply facilitates conversions—it is compliant with financial laws.
A paper from Dark Wallet on the partnership sums up their thoughts:
“We believe the future should be easier for every citizen to cash-in and out.”
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