Now you can actually hold Bitcoin in your hand. Swiss and Singapore-based company Tangem announced the launch of “physical” Bitcoins or Tangem at its Megafash Suntec City store in Singapore on Thursday.
The notes called “Tangem” are available immediately in denominations of 0.01 and 0.05 BTC, and will be found in retail chains to ATMs within the next few weeks the company says.
In a recent article published on Medium, Co-founder of Tangem Andrew Pantyukhin said that the smartnotes are one of the “first physical manifestations” of Bitcoin.
Andrew Pantyukhin, co-founder at Tangem says:
“We are the first real physical Bitcoin- the first tangible Bitcoin. With these banknotes, you can conduct physical crypto transactions by just handing them over or receiving them. They are truly decentralized, meaning it will never be restricted by technological limitations.”
In addition to the in-store launch, the first shipment of 10,000 production notes is ready for delivery to prospective partners and distributors worldwide, the company says.
The tamper-proof notes were developed using military and government-grade technology and use a chip made by Samsung which is certified to the Common Criteria EAL6+ and EMVCo security standards.
Tangem notes can be used for physical transactions immediately and are free and anonymous the company says.
Compared with existing solutions like digital wallets Tangem notes offer a higher degree of security to users- owning one banknote does not give hackers access to the entire account and it it’s relatively uneconomical to hack just one note.
While there has been tremendous global interest in virtual currencies the company says the world still needs smart banknotes like Tangem because cryptocurrencies are challenging to use and simplifying the process of owning and using them will lead to higher adoption rates.
Andrew Pantyukhin says:
“Crypto is still very difficult to use; it requires a steep learning curve. The users have to go through so many steps that are complex and tiresome. With a physical bank note, all you need is the banknote, and there is no need to learn or know anything about cryptocurrency. Everyone knows how cash works. We don’t need to teach you anything. Plus everyone knows how to keep things physically safe , you don’t need highly sophisticated digital skills.”
Alex Dovbnya
Denys Serhiichuk
