We do the research, you get the alpha!
Want to enjoy Christmas the way Satoshi Nakamoto would’ve wanted you to?
There’s a whole host of dapps and blockchain bling around to decentralize your Christmas and ensure a very cool Yule.
Pre-Christmas preparations
It’s getting a bit late to send Christmas cards by the post, but never fear, blockchain-powered digital cards are here to save the day. Spanish project Christmas Blockchain lets you send digital cards registered on Ethereum. Profits are donated to Voluntechies, a non profit which creates activities in virtual reality spaces especially for hospitalized children, the elderly and the disabled.
Another option is Amaten, the largest gift card exchange in Japan. It’s using the Aelf blockchain for its gift card exchange system, to streamline the issuance, purchase, and exchange of gift cards.
Once you’ve discharged the duty of sending crypto cards to friends and family, it’s time to kick the festivities off with a bang. Mosey on down to the BrewDog bar in London’s Canary Wharf for your Christmas party; it not only has a fine selection of brews, but it lets you pay in bitcoin.
Find a shop that accepts crypto
Last-minute Christmas shopping is the perfect opportunity to spend some of your hard-earned crypto. CoinMap makes it easy to find locations where you can use crypto to buy anything from fine rugs in New York to beautiful handcrafted Bucarelli briefcases in Madrid. Right now, there are over 15,000 vendors around the world accepting cryptocurrencies. There’s also a raft of merchants on Shopify willing to take it. And check out CoinATMRadar, if you run out of coins.
Still looking for the perfect gift? Try our Crypto Christmas gift guide. Or gift some bitcoin. One thing that can’t fail is chocolate bitcoins. Much more cost effective than an actual bitcoin, they come in all the colors of the rainbow, a choice of three flavors, and they’re only 25 cents each. Cardano, Ripple and 17 more cryptos are also available.
Thinking of spreading some festive cheer by donating to charity? The number of charities accepting crypto donations has doubled in North America, Europe and Australia this year, according to the 2019 Global NGO Technology Report. So you’ll be spoilt for choice.
Deck the halls
Christmas tree vendors are now accepting bitcoin. But what to hang from the tree? Bitcoin Christmas ornaments, of course. Also available in Ethereum, Litecoin and many more.
Time for turkey. And why not plump for the best? The providence of Honeysuckle White turkeys is tracked on a blockchain, and the bird is conveniently delivered to your doorstep.
Now don your Bitcoin Santa hat and Christmas sweater. Bitcoin not your thing? No problem, Hodlmoon have suitably Christmassy designs for Ethereum, Brave, Kyber Network, Neo and Litecoin too. They’ll even create a new pattern for your favorite altcoin, if it’s not one they’ve done already.
Next, fire up The Ultimate Cryptocurrency Christmas CD, which features 14 “Fun Holiday Songs” including "O Transfer Fee,” “SEC to the World” and "Silent Fork.” And get cooking! Use Magic Spoon to store your recipes. It uses Blockstack’s decentralized network for storage, so you can be sure that the giants of Big Tech can’t get their hands on Grandma’s mince pie recipe. Accompany your festive feast with some drinks, with Bitcoin ice cubes, naturally.
It wouldn’t be Christmas without gathering the family round the telly and inflicting your movie of choice on them. Not seen THE Crypto movie yet? Now’s the time (or not, we did call it “paralyzingly slow,” after all). Or settle down beside the fire with The Scrooge of Bitcoin: A Christmas Tale.
Fancy some old-fashioned entertainment? Try a board game like Cryptocurrency or Moneropoly. Or try playing one of the old favourites with polyhedral dice, which generate a base-58 random number, so are great for creating bitcoin private keys (note: this will probably render your game unplayable).
After the festivities
If you’re planning a post-Christmas break, many travel sites now accept crypto. Two of the most popular are Cheapair and booking platform Travala, which has just inked a deal with booking.com, opening up access to its massive catalogue of deals. Or check out CryptoCribs, a decentralized alternative to Airbnb.
Several more travel companies accept crypto through integration with the US payment processor Bitpay. That means you can book flights and pay for hotel stays with bitcoin and bitcoin cash.
Merry Decryptmas to you all. Hic.