What if the savings of tomorrow were in Bitcoin (BTC)? That’s what Bitstack, a French startup, is proposing, allowing you to automatically invest in Bitcoin by rounding up your daily banking transactions to the nearest euro. We take a look at the application, the details of this unique savings system and what saving in cryptocurrencies entails.
Accumulate Bitcoin effortlessly with Bitstack
What if you could save Bitcoin (BTC) automatically? This is the idea of Alexandre Roubaud and Kabir Sethi, two young entrepreneurs who created the French startup Bitstack. The two friends met in Montreal, before Alexandre Roubaud went to work for a Canadian startup called Moka.
The latter had a simple, yet innovative project: to create an automatic savings system by rounding up everyday banking transactions to the next euro. That’s when the two partners decided to create Bitstack, a project based on the same model, but with a small difference.
Savers will not see their round amounts saved in a savings account, a home savings plan (PEL) or even through shares, but in Bitcoin.
But why save in Bitcoin rather than in conventional currency? According to the Bitstack team, Bitcoin is a better long-term investment for the simple reason that the current banking system is based on debt, and is therefore mechanically destined to collapse sooner or later.
This idea is also defended by the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto himself:
The fundamental problem with conventional money is all the trust that is required for it to work. You have to trust the central bank not to devalue the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of violations of that trust. “
Bitcoin, unlike central bank-issued currency, cannot be printed infinitely. No more than 21 million units can circulate in the market, and Bitcoin is not owned by any central entity.
Since its inception, it has been a more secure long-term asset of value than traditional currencies, as evidenced by its inflation rate.
Graph showing the number of BTC in circulation (blue) and its inflation rate (yellow)
Let’s make it clear from the outset that in order to be able to offer its services, Bitstack is registered as a digital asset service provider (DASP) with the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) and the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR).
Let’s find out what Bitstack offers in concrete terms, and what its model is all about in the long term.
What are the benefits of saving with Bitstack?
First, before you can take advantage of easy, painless Bitcoin savings with Bitstack, you can sign up today for early access to the app, which is scheduled for official release in Q3 of this year. Until then, all users benefit from 0% fees on Bitcoin purchases/sales.
We invite you to sign up for Bitstack via our link below, which will allow you to earn €5 in Bitcoin once you have completed the KYC process on the platform
Once you have received the link by email, all you have to do is download the application and then proceed to verify your identity. Last step, you will need to link Bitstack to your bank account in order to automate the rounding of your transactions.
Note that Bitstack uses the same security measures as the major banks and does not have access to your bank details.
All you have to do is set up your savings plan. Bitstack offers 3 options:
- Automatic rounding: for example, if you make a transaction of €9.30, then €0.70 will be added to it, which is then automatically converted into Bitcoin. It is possible to add a multiplier of 2, 5 or 10 to save more money on each transaction. The total round-up is calculated at the end of the week and is then converted into Bitcoin before being credited to your Bitstack account;
- Recurring savings: you can set up a recurring savings plan of any amount you wish, which will be applied weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. For example, you can automatically invest €50 in Bitcoin every month;
- One-time purchase: Bitstack also allows you to buy Bitcoin directly for as little as €1. All you need is a bank card, no unnecessary transactions are required.
Not sure why you should save in Bitcoin? Bitstack offers a tool to estimate how much an investor could have saved based on the amount invested, the frequency of investment and a specific time period. This gives you an idea of the value of investing in Bitcoin over the long term.
This is known as Dollar Cost Averaging, or DCA. In other words, it defines a way of investing regularly and over the long term in a certain asset in order to smooth out the risks linked to the potential volatility of the latter.
For example, by investing in Bitcoin on a regular basis over several years, your portfolio will sometimes experience upswings, sometimes downswings, but will most likely follow an upward trend over the long term.
Past performance cannot predict future performance, but the price of Bitcoin, due to its peculiarities and increasing adoption, is expected to go up over the long term.
This is what Bitstack offers here, but in a fully automated way.
It should be noted that once the BTC are placed in your Bitstack account, they can be withdrawn at any time, they are not locked. Moreover, if you have any concern, a text chat is directly integrated within the application to easily connect you with the support
Conclusion on Bitstack services
For some, building up savings in the form of cryptocurrencies may raise questions. We are well and truly used to the banking system as we know it, with some people having a Livret A, others a home savings plan, and some even saving in the form of physical money.
That being said, Bitcoin can be a very interesting alternative, which does not exclude the fact of continuing to save in a classic bank account in parallel.
We are currently facing an inflationary banking system, coupled with rising property prices throughout France and a minimum wage that is struggling to evolve. But above all, the European Central Bank (ECB) continues to print money, creating money ex-nihilo, which has the direct effect of fuelling inflation.
Therefore, it might seem rather wise to build up a treasury in Bitcoin, an asset that is accessible to all, independent of the global market, incensurable and almost immune to probable devaluation due to its immutable quantity.
Bitstack wants to democratise access to Bitcoin for everyone: a decentralised currency limited to 21 million units.
The French startup, based at Station F in Paris, has also made it onto the list of 100 startups to invest in by the business magazine Challenges.
Finally, it should be noted that over the year 2021, more than 60% of BTC held in wallets (outside of centralized platforms) have not moved, and that they are already a form of savings for many people.
