BitTag: Helping Bitcoin shoppers find the right price

The digital currency Bitcoin has been gaining more mainstream acceptance of late, but there's one problem that users have to deal with on a daily, if not hourly, basis - its value can change in the blink of an eye.

by Helen Leggatt

Samuel Cox, a Creative Technologist with London-based creative and technology studio, RehabStudio, has come up with a device that will make in-store shoppers using the virtual currency Bitcoin getting a better handle of its current value.

Called BitTag, and currently in prototype stage, the devices are permanently connected to a computer running the BitTag app using Bluetooth low energy technology. This enables the BitTag to automatically display the current Bitcoin price of an item. The device, which has yet to be given a unit price, uses very little processing power with an OLED display and a rechargeable LiPo battery.

The way in which BitTag works is very simple and negates the need to pay at a checkout. To display the most up-to-date price of an item in Bitcoin a shopper simply shakes the matchbox-size device. A second shake provides the shopper with a QR code that is then scanned into the shopper's smartphone to transfer the funds from their Bitcoin wallet to the store's.

"As for BitTag taking off, it's very much tied to Bitcoin, so it depends on how fast/if Bitcoin is socially accepted," says Cox "But the reaction has been really good so far."