Review: Prepaid Recharge and Buying Gift Card using Bitcoin Lightning Network on Bitrefill

Users can top up their prepaid mobiles or buy 100s of Gift cards using Crypto on Bitrefill. In this article we will look at both!

It is almost impossible to spend cryptocurrency in India to buy anything. Most merchants shy away from it. Therefore, it is always best to spend your cryptocurrency to buy gift cards and then spend the gift cards at merchant outlets.

In this article, we try Bitrefill platform to buy Gift cards and top up Airtel Prepaid using Bitcoin Lightning Network. Bitrefill supports multiple cryptocurrencies for payment, however gives a 2% discount on paying with Lightning. Needless to say, I am using Lightning.

Products on Bitrefill

Bitrefill, as the name suggests, offers “refill” for prepaid phone numbers. Users can recharge/Top up any phone number from around the world including India. Major Carriers are supported for India.

Users can also buy from 100+ Gift cards available on the platform. Some of the most popular merchants available are Google Play, Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy and many more.

Get $10 Bonus* on Bitrefill, click the link below to Register

Visit Bitrefill

Steps to Top Up Prepaid Phone on Bitrefill

Users can Top up their phones with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Dogecoin, or Lightning. Bitrefill gives a 2% discount for payment using Lightning, hence for this experiment we will use Lightning network to recharge my Airtel number for 698 INR plan.

There are few easy steps to follow:

1. Click the option “Refill Phone” from the header and choose the network.
2. Select the payment currency from the drop down menu, choose “SAT” for lightning.
3. Select the amount for Top up. (Bitrefill doesn’t provide plan details)
4. Enter your phone number to recharge.
5. Click on Purchase, it will be added to cart.
6. User can now check out the cart order or keep shopping to add more items to the cart.
7. Make Payment to the designated address of the selected cryptocurrency, in case of lightning, pay the invoice generated from a compatible Lightning wallet like Bluewallet
8. Payment will be detected automatically, top up will be done in few seconds. Some Crypto Payments need 1 confirmation on blockchain.

Steps to Buy a Gift Card on Bitrefill

In order to spend Cryptocurrencies, user can buy various Gift cards from Bitrefill and use them on merchant sites. For our experiment, we will buy Rs. 500 Gift card on Flipkart.

There are few easy steps to follow to buy Gift Card on BitRefill

1. Click the option “Browse Products” from the header menu and select the country from the left sidebar menu.
2. Select the Gift Card to Purchase. User can also use filters to search specific merchants.
3. Select the amount or enter a custom amount (if available) to buy the Gift Card.
4. Select the payment currency from the drop down.
5. Click on “Add to Cart”
6. User can now check out the cart order or keep shopping to add more items to the cart.
7. Choose the Cryptocurrency you wish to pay with.
8. Make Payment to the designated address, in case of lightning, pay the invoice generated from a compatible Lightning wallet like Bluewallet.
9. Payment will be detected automatically, e-voucher will be sent by email and also be visible on screen and “Purchase History”. Some Crypto Payments need 1 confirmation on blockchain.

Get $10 Bonus* on Bitrefill, click the link below to Register

Visit Bitrefill

Validating the gift card

How do I validate if the gift card I just purchased is legit? By going to the merchant site.

In this case, I opened up my Flipkart account and “Added a gift card”. I entered the Card number and Pin, and voila, it was added. Of course if you purchased the gift card to actually gift it to someone, you have to ask that person to add the card to her flipkart wallet.

Purchase as Gift

Bitrefill, provides an option to purchase an item as a gift. In this case, user can enter the recipient name, email address, a message, sender details and either send it instantly or schedule the delivery for later.

This feature can come in handy for gifting gift cards purchased with Cryptocurrencies.

Is it worth buying Gift Cards using Crypto?

Now that we know we can spend crypto to pay for stuff in India, the real question is whether or not would I want to do that?

The answer is simple. Do you have crypto that instead of holding, you wish to spend? Then go for it.

There may be times when the Crypto value you are spending is not exactly the same as the gift card value you receive. For instance, the value for 110038 SAT to buy Rs. 698 top up was actually Rs. 740 at the time of sending.

We don’t advise buying crypto and then spending it for gift cards right away. It would not make sense. Keep the INR rates of crypto in mind while doing any transaction.

If you hold cryptocurrency and wish to gift someone or yourself a gift card, do it here. Bitrefill has over 100 gift cards, pretty much covering everything that one may require.

What do you think about Bitrefill, will you try it out? Let us know in the comments below!

Get $10 Bonus* on Bitrefill, click the link below to Register

Visit Bitrefill

Note: This article contains affiliate links. Coin Crunch writers and authors earn various commission when our readers register and use the products using links on our articles.

*$10 Bonus after spending $100 on the platform.