QR code for Bitcoin wallet
Bitcoin industry has been an attractive place for innovations so far. And as a matter of fact it has been exciting to follow the bitcoin related news. With the introduction of ATMs and other high-tech gadgets it’s interesting what will be next.
MEVU, a wearable technology company, has introduced the first gesture-based wearable bitcoin wallet. It is worn around the wrist and it also keeps tracking your movements in order to make payments. MEVU’s bracelet, powered by Coinbase’s wallet API, will allow its users easily send bitcoins with just a wave of the wrist.
MEVU’s CEO and co-founder, Apurv Mishra, said that the company’s wearable wallet will be mainly used for small transactions such as tipping in bitcoins, also altcoins or even some other currency: “If we use bitcoin or any other currency, if it has the facility for tipping, I think that’s what people would want.”
MEVU’s CEO is willing to get rid of the QR codes using wearable electronics. Apurv Mishra liked the idea of the community based payments that are run through Dogetipbot software.
He explained: “[MEVU] could add a layer of payments for smaller value transactions: parking, tipping, and so on.” Mishra and his group believes that small value transactions are the best choice for wearable wallets. They believe it would require more than just a gesture to transact an amount larger than $20.
The Technology
The MEVU bracelet is similar in shape to the Nymi biometric wallet, but also involves an InvenSense motion sensor for its movement tracking.
The transactions are transmitted to a point-of-sales (POS) device using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which is a common feature on many mobile devices today. Said Mishra: “In BLE, we know the proximity, and then you use the gesture to authenticate the transaction.”
BLE is chosen as a remote method for bitcoin transactions due to widespread technology’s popularity on a number of devices, according to Mishra: “Most iPads that are point-of-sale devices actually use BLE. So it can be really intuitive without adding any additional infrastructure.”
Apple Issues
The main issue arising with Apple is the fact that the company is not willing to accept bitcoin wallets in its iOS system. Nevertheless, Mishra mentioned that MEVU is developing software that will be working on Android. Moreover, many Androids use BLE, so it will be easy to transfer to that platform when the company introduce it in a few months.
Mishra said: “With bitcoin, as we know, there are some challenges. We cannot bring this app to the Apple App Store. But I thought that demonstrating this is what we need, this is the direction, would be really interesting.”
