‘No Borders’ — Alistair Milne Sends Bitcoin Instead of $2.6K Gold Bar

Bitcoin (BTC) investor Alistair Milne was eventually forced to send Bitcoin instead of a $2,600 gold bar as part of his recent giveaway.

Following a giveaway announcement on Sept. 19, Milne has revealed the winner as well as other giveaway details in a thread on Twitter on Oct. 22. 

Giveaway background

As originally envisaged, Milne should have given away a $2,600 Denarium Bitcoin Decennium 2019 as part of the giveaway with the winner expected to be announced on Oct. 19. In the giveaway announcement launch, the entrepreneur specified that in order to be eligible, participants should follow Milne’s Twitter and Instagram account as well as like and retweet the announcement.

Coming in a limited edition of 100 products, Denarium Bitcoin Decennium 2019 is a device that combines a 1.097-ounce gold bar and a built-in Bitcoin cold storage wallet.

“You can’t send gold as you can with Bitcoin”

However, Milne eventually had to giveaway Bitcoin instead of the initially offered Denarium gold bar, explaining that the randomly-chosen winner comes from India, and sending such a device to a person in the country would be a problem. Milne tweeted:

“How to send a gold bar to India without it getting lost/stolen/seized? The short answer is, you can't. Or you could, in theory, but it is very expensive!”

Actually, the 19-year old giveaway winner Krish Patel also did not mind to get his prize in Bitcoin and did not really want the gold, Milne noted, adding that he would have sold the gold bar anyway as he is doing a part-time job to earn $350 a month. 

As such, the parties agreed to proceed with the giveaway in Bitcoin and Milne has sent the $2,600 amount in BTC instead.

Concluding the story, Milne outlined the apparent benefits of Bitcoin as a cross-border transaction tool, claiming:

“Gold is pretty, shiny, etc. but you can't send it anywhere in the world within minutes as you can with Bitcoin. [...] this is why I Bitcoin. No borders. No limits. No permission. No trust. Just two strangers on the Internet transacting & one family's life changed.”

Meanwhile, India has not officially finalized its stance on cryptocurrencies. In mid-October, the Supreme Court of India announced a delay of a hearing on the Reserve Bank of India’s ban on providing services by banks and financial institutions to crypto-related business in the country.