Gyft to start using bitcoin

Vinny Lingham, CEO of Gyft, a mobile gift card company, has announced at the annual SXSW conference that the company intends to use bitcoin to facilitate gift card providers to create more secure, consumer-friendly digital products. The announcement was made during a conference panel that addressed the real-world applications of bitcoin.

Although it is in the R&D stage at present, it is expected "tokenize" gift cards, enabling the transfer of gift cards between users and other digital wallets by using colored coins, or bitcoin tokens, issued on the bitcoin blockchain. Moreover, it would also allow changing the gift card numbers so that they were less prone to theft or damage.

However, he said that the plan is still far from completion, and told CoinDesk, "We're months away from having a viable prototype, but we think it's going to be good for the industry and great for consumers."