Saving with Lawnmower: I pretend to be an adult for once in my life

Recently I downloaded Lawnmower, a bitcoin app that turns the “spare change” from your credit card purchases into bitcoin. So, for every $3.60 you spend at McPoundtown, Lawnmower puts $0.40 towards an investment in bitcoin. Here is how my experience with the app has gone so far (about 10 days.)

Let’s start out by saying that I can’t save money. I may be the only person in the entire world that has used a CoinStar since the early 2000’s. Give me four quarters and I will give you the wrapper of the Twix that I just ate. Thus, I am constantly looking for the most pain-free way to save.

Unfortunately, my erratic spending is at odds with my chosen lifestyle as a bitcoin hobbyist. I have written about the legality of virtual currencies and commented on model regulations for bitcoin BUT  I am still in my 20’s and actually saving the money to buy a full bitcoin is about the hardest thing I have done since I tried to stay sober at a networking event.

When I read about Lawnmower in Fortune  I was skeptical for three major reasons. First, I generally don’t trust bitcoin businesses because exactly one third of all bitcoin users are certifiably insane. Second, I knew that using it would require me to link my bank account to the app somehow, which I didn’t love. Finally, I read the app was still in beta and I haven’t trusted a Beta since my first semester at the University of Oklahoma (am I right ladieees?). Still, I am a sucker for a savings account and I decided to investigate further.

Pro tip: the best place to start investigating a bitcoin business is their “Legal” section. You may not know this, but by using A LOT of bitcoin businesses you are tacitly agreeing to be governed by the laws of a different country. (#teamSingapore).

Lawnmower’s legal info seemed to be on the up-and-up. Most of their Terms of Use are somehow related to those of Coinbase, to which I have already agreed. The price is based on Coinbase’s valuation, purchases from Coinbase count towards the transactions, and the privacy policy is virtually identical to that of Coinbase. Essentially, Coinbase looked at me and said, “Don’t worry girl, he’s with me.”

Next I looked into how it worked. It is exactly as easy as it sounds. You download the app, it links with your Coinbase account, you spend like crazy, it rounds up to the next dollar, and you eventually you get a bunch of bitcoin. Lawnmower holds off on buying you any bitcoin until you have saved up $4.

Seems legit.

So I downloaded the free app and waited for the bitcoin to roll in. I was asked if I would like it to jumpstart my savings by applying it to some of my most recent purchases. Globviously I said yes; I desperately wanted to see what was going to happen. For a day or two nothing happened. I looked at my Coinbase wallet and it said I had a very sexy $0 worth of bitcoin. About three days later I glanced at my Coinbase and BOOM, new wallet. The wallet simply called “Lawnmower”  had just under $4 worth of bitcoin (classic price fluctuations.)

It took about eight purchases worth of change to buy my first .02 of bitcoin through Lawnmower but it was pretty exciting. So far I am up to about $18 worth of bitcoin all just from saving my “spare change.” Once I actually started paying attention to the purchases I started wanting more bitcoin. I got super pissed off that it wasn’t buying as fast as I can spend but apparently it can only buy as fast as Bank of America processes payments.

As it turns out, I’m a fan. I’d definitely tell people to use it. It works with most of the major banks so some people that have local banks may not be able to use it (sorry Grandma, Five Thirds didn’t make the cut this time.) Bonus: You can send and receive money with your Lawnmower wallet just like you could any other Coinbase wallet. This was a welcomed surprise I discovered when I needed to send someone .001 bitcoin and I somehow couldn’t rationalize spending $0.23 to buy that off the exchange.

One thing I was not prepared for is that it does take a full dollar if your purchase is for an even dollar amount. (ex: you spend $5.00 and Lawnmower puts $1.00 towards bitcoin.) I didn’t love that at first but honestly I don’t hate it. Also, it has made me more conscious of how often I buy something from the vending machine or take Sidecar.

Moral of the story is I give them a round of applause.  I can’t wait to save up enough bitcoin so that I can blow my savings on something completely useless from O.co.

S&F

Why no one cares about bitcoin in the opinion of a hobbiest

Cryptocurrencies are a decentralized, electronically held and created medium of exchange. The first and most popular crypto is of course, bitcoin. Bitcoin are created through a process called “mining” where individual miners confirm transactions and publish them in blocks to the general ledger. The miners are then rewarded for publishing blocks with bitcoin. These bitcoin then make their way into the virtual economy. The technology has incredible benefits such as low- to no transaction fees and the protocol eliminates the need for a third party to prevent double spending ( a problem with other digital currencies) .

However, Bitcoin has become the center of media attention not for its innovative technology but for talk of the need for regulation, money laundering, and theoretical attacks from collectives of miners.

In spite of the negative media attention bitcoin is being accepted at a growing number of business including Overstock.com, NewEgg, and Shopify. In other words, bitcoin has never been easier to use. Businesses like LocalBitcoin have facilitated person to person transfers by allowing users to rate sellers, set up in-person meetings, and create escrow transactions. Coinbase has been praised by some as the most user friendly exchange/ wallet host. These networks that have facilitated buying and selling, making transactions in virtual currencies fairly safe for the casual users that don’t view the crypto as an investment. Although cold storage and bitcoin safes are becoming more popular, users that buy and spend small amounts of bitcoin are fairly safe from even the most common risks associated with the btc.

So why isn’t this protocol, with its well documented benefits, seen as a flash in the pan or a bubble that could burst at any moment? The short answer: bitcoin users.

The two biggest obstacles preventing the casual internet user from dabbling in bitcoin are the following statements:

1) “The Fed is afraid of bitcoin”: Normal people do not listen to people that EVER talk about The Fed. There is maybe a modicum of truth to this statement. Bitcoin could be used as an alternative to paper currency in the same way that credit and debit cards are today. In May of this year Marc Andreesen described a scenario in which consumers would be able to use bitcoin at Target in his article for the Washington Post. His optimistic yet tempered vision for the future of bitcoin is the type of contribution new users need to push them towards buying a satoshi or two. ( satoshi is the name given to one millionth of a bitcoin). Instead conspiracy blogs tell users that paper currency will be gone the next year. Nearly one-third of the Americans are either unbanked or underbanked, meaning these individuals rely almost exclusively on cash. This fact and countless others are ignored by bitcoin users, making the very useful technology seem, to some, as the passion of the fringe.

2) ” Well first I’ll have to explain how it works” Consumers have many reasons to be a little bit wary of cryptos, as they would be with any other new technology. However, many reasonable people are unreasonably resistant to even examining bitcoin or any other alt coins (ex. Dogecoin Lytecoin). One reason is the way that the conversation around the technology has been approached. Asking someone what bitcoin is if they are a user (or worse miner) will inevitably lead to a lengthy explanation involving talk of hashes, nonces, and ASICS when all you wanted was the basics. People say there is no elevator speech for bitcoin. The truth is, there is. No one knows how their credit card works and yet somehow even the dimmest humans have managed to run up credit card debt all over the world. So why aren’t these same people investing in bundles of bitcoin? Because it sounds so fucking complicated. People that are really knowledgeable about the benefits of bitcoin might tell potential users about the countless advantages, particularly to small business and the underbanked ( very important benefits but outside the scope of this blogpost). Instead those with a little curiosity have it stamped out by an overload of information.

The takeaway here being that bitcoin is very interesting but no one knows what it could or will become. No body does and anyone that claims otherwise is a liar. A terrible liar. Feel free to play.