bctip printable bitcoin tips · 2013 – 2024

bctip is closed. Its notes live on at Parahub.

For more than a decade this site turned bitcoin into small paper notes you could print, cut out and hand to someone — a tip, a gift, a way to put a first coin in a stranger's pocket. It stopped working in 2024. The idea moved to Parahub, and it works better there than it could here.

Four printed bctip notes on a table, 2013
bctip notes, printed and cut. 2013.

Holding a paper tip?

Then it has expired. Every bctip note carried an expiry date printed on its face, and unclaimed tips were sent back to whoever paid for them — that was the whole promise of the service. There is nothing on this domain left to redeem, and no wallet here that holds anything.

If you believe you are holding a note that never went back, write to info@parahub.io with a photo of it.

What replaced it

A Parahub note does the same job: a small amount of bitcoin you can give to someone who has no wallet, no account and no address to send you first. Three things are different.

  1. Nobody holds the money

    bctip kept your coins in a hot wallet on this server until someone redeemed them — you had to trust the site with the balance. A Parahub note is funded straight from your own wallet, and the amount waits in a lock on the bitcoin network itself. There is no pot for anyone to walk away with, ours included.

  2. It still comes back by itself

    Nobody claims it, and at the expiry date it returns to you. That used to be a nightly job on this machine that had to keep running; now it is a property of the network, and it happens whether or not anyone is watching.

  3. Paper is optional

    A note is also a link. Send one by email or messenger and the person opens it in a browser — no printer, no scissors, and no asking anyone for a wallet address first. Print nine on an A4 sheet when you want the paper.

A Parahub bearer note as printed today: amount, QR code, typeable code and expiry date
The same thing today, on parahub.io.
See how it works Open Parahub

What is Parahub

A community platform — a local marketplace, neighbourhood governance, live transit, and a bitcoin wallet whose keys never leave your browser. It is built on the rule that no part of it ever holds anyone's money or keys, which is exactly the rule bctip could not keep. The notes are one small corner of it.