You can now buy gin with GIN earned in a game of gin
Cryptocurrencies have had a pretty rough year, and many of their opponents are probably rejoicing at the news these past few weeks have seen. However, as with any new technology, luddites aren’t always completely wrong. Just… not necessarily right. One of the points raised against alts (and bitcoin itself, for that matter) is their so-called real-life applicability.
“You can’t buy a pack of gum with crypto”, one will say, only for someone else to echo “You can’t pay your rent in crypto, either”. Right. We have to remember, though, that blockchain tech — and alts — are built by humans. And if there’s anything we humans do, we keep on keeping on. We’re (almost always) driven to win — and if we can do it spitefully and experience that sweet, sweet schadenfreude while proving our detractors wrong, all the better. To that end, there has been a steady stream of projects aimed at bringing alts closer to your supermarket, pizzeria, donut shop and artisanal cat litter box boutique.
And this brings us to the gist of the article — yesterday, we spent GIN to buy gin in a supermarket. And it was no different to using any other credit or debit card.
(We even recorded a video of it and if we manage to edit it and it doesn’t look like it was filmed on a potato-powered turnip, we’ll add that to this article.)
GIN on PolisPay
When we were first approached by Polis, our CEO was slightly hesitant. He’d seen many similar projects in the past, and few lived to tell the tale.
However, their product seemed solid, the problem they solve is very real and Emil, being his optimistic self, was hopeful. Whoever manages to create a product like theirs and survive for long enough should turn the crypto-fiat squabble on its head. But it’s a tremendously tall order. More on this below.
We marched on, went through the whole KYC process and, one week after having completed it, we had a freshly minted card in the office (flown in from Mexico). It tooks us an additional week to smooth out some issues with the Polis — GIN integration, but following that everything went magically well. And the best bit is that you can give the card to anyone on the street and they’d know how to use it.
Help needed
We would like to test the Polis system. As such, Polis has 100 GIN-compatible PolisPay cards that they can distribute to our community members. Polis will tell you how you can get your hands on one of them. Before that, though, read on.
Important to know
Polis is, at the time of writing, compliant with Mexican law. If you are from Europe and concerned about GDPR, please note that — as far as we know — Polis isn’t GDPR-ready. On top of that, we do not know how your data will end up being used, nor is GIN in a position to guarantee its safety. As such, while we’re elated to see GIN added to Polis’ roster of supported projects, we are also cautious in regards to data security. We see the silver lining, but without losing sight of the cloud it’s in. And one more thing — the cost of a card is $25.
