Thanks to a new service called Chainside, from now on you can book an Italian classic taxi and pay for it with Bitcoin.
Unione Radiotaxi d’Italia (URI) and its president Loreno Bittarelli decided to accept Bitcoin after the Taxi Hack Hackathon held in Rome last year.
It is not the first time we have heard that a transport company has decided to accept Bitcoin. We wrote about Uber switching to Bitcoin in Argentina after the government blocked its credit cards.
New taxi platform
Through a platform called ItTaxi you can pay for your taxi ride in Rome in advance, by calculating your itinerary on their website. At the end of this process, itTaxi will send you an email with a coupon to prove that you’ve already paid for your ride. You can also book through the traditional methods, including phone call, app or sms. Currently you cannot book your taxi directly on itTaxi, but this service will be enabled soon.
Chainside
Still in its beta version, Chainside is a web wallet and payment processor which will provide the Italian taxi company the service it needs to accept Bitcoin, amongst other methods of payment.
Created by several members of the Blockchain Education Network, at the moment Chainside is only available for the Italian taxi service, but every company will soon be able to use this tool.
"It’s not only taxi drivers in Rome who are interested in Bitcoin payments, but every day more and more companies have started showing their interest as a way to improve their services. Unfortunately it is not always easy for non-experts to integrate such an innovative technology in a secure and scalable way, that's why at Chainside we want to keep developing products which will help businesses to handle Bitcoin transactions in the best possible way,” explains Chainside co-founder Federico Tenga.
This way URI and 3570 taxis can accept Bitcoin without any intermediaries.
How it works
When you want to book a taxi ride, Chainside will create the invoice to pay for it with Bitcoin. The Bitcoins received will be handled by Chainside until merchants decide to sell them or to move them to another wallet. During the pending transaction, Chainside can monitor the Blockchain to check the status and avoid possible forks.
Arcade City: a Blockchain-based car sharing
Cointelegraph recently wrote about Arcade City, an open marketplace which connects clients directly with drivers. It only works via a mobile app, available for both iOS and Android. All you need to do is hail a ride, choose your driver and pay what you think is fair.
At the moment Arcade City is active in the US, but drivers are also available in Australia, while Mexico, Canada and Sweden will be launched next spring.