Bitcoins can buy you everything from lunch and international flights to alleged hits on other human beings, if youâre that way inclined.
Now, in Poland, they can also be used for healthcare.
A dentist in Kielce in central Poland is offering a 10% discount for customers who pay with bitcoin. Profident, which also makes dental equipment, says it is Polandâs and possibly Europeâs first dental clinic to accept bitcoin payments.
As with other bitcoin-accepting businesses in other parts of the world, the company cited bank transaction fees as a reason to move towards bitcoin payments.
âI have 60% of payments via debit or credit cards, and it is growing. In my country fees are very high, around 2% of transaction value. Because of this fact I lose lot of money. Bitcoin will change this situation,â said Profidentâs Tomasz ZbożeÅ.
A string of Polish organisations have begun to embrace bitcoin, including social media agencies, web design companies and a free market think-tank. The government is yet to issue coherent guidance on the use of bitcoin, but a policy document released in July said bitcoin is not currency under Polish Law.
Just this week, Polish bitcoin exchange Bidextreme.pl was compromised, with hackers emptying the bitcoin and litecoin wallets of the exchangeâs users. The amount stolen has not yet been made public.
Healthcare is one area that is yet to have been properly penetrated by bitcoin, but a few people around the world have had a crack at combining bitcoin with online healthcare.
The Virtual Doctor Project, which uses teleconferencing to connect doctors with patients in remote areas of Africa, is one, while a 2012 bitcointalk.org thread named âMedical Consult for Bitcoinsâ is another, perhaps on the other end of the credibility spectrum from the Virtual Doctor Project.
However, not everyoneâs impressed. A more recent example, CoinMD, was called âthe absolute worst place on Earth to spend your bitcoinsâ by Wired.com.
Profident began accepting bitcoins on 18th November and do not use a payments service, instead operating their own wallet directly. ZbożeÅ says he isnât fazed by the technology and would only consider using a payment company if a lot of customers start paying with bitcoin.
âOutside of the dental business, I mine bitcoins and keep them as an investment diversification. I use BTC also for payments (but I prefer to save and keep bitcoins rather than to spend them),â he said. â[So] I donât consider bitcoin payments a hassle.â
So far, the dentist hasnât had any patients paying with bitcoin, but ZbożeÅ is confident about the rising popularity of bitcoin in Poland.
âRight now, [accepting bitcoin payments] is more a marketing issue, but I believe that cryptocurrency will get much more popular in next decade,â he says. âThe growth [in Poland] is exponential.â