Bitcoin has been in the news a lot, but first, you need to decide on whether you should accept bitcoin payments on your website or not!
With cryptocurrencies becoming more and more popular, this is a concern most of us have. Accepting crypto payments is ultimately up to you, but if you accept, it’s more important to have the right setup. In fact, several e-retailers like Overstock & Steam, have lately accepted Bitcoin.
This means that it’s the time you must consider accepting the same for your business. The best part is you don’t really need to know about Bitcoin in detail to accept bitcoin payments due to services like Coinbase that automatically take Bitcoins and turn them into hard currency.
Practically, it is as simple as accepting any regular payments. In this article, we will discuss why you should consider bitcoin payments on your website and introduce you to the ways of doing it effectively. Keep reading!
What are Bitcoin Payments?
In a nutshell, Bitcoin is an innovative, peer-to-peer network that enables a new payment system for its users. Basically, it’s a tool to send and receive digital payments instantly from anyone, anywhere across the world. It is the first decentralized payment network that is powered by its users without any central authority.
This cryptocurrency has grown a lot since its commencement in 2009, and adoption is increasingly high. In a user’s opinion, bitcoin is pretty much a mobile app or computer program that offers a personal bitcoin wallet and allows the transfer of money with them.
Why accept bitcoin payments?
If you have an online business, it makes sense to accept bitcoin payments alongside other payment methods, for the following reasons:
- It’s convenient to receive Bitcoin payments. All you have to do is share the address and specify how much Bitcoin users have to pay.
- There are various payment processors available. Other than receiving payments directly, multiple processors are able to convert your Bitcoins into regular currency.
- Bitcoin can be a great investment. Bitcoin is volatile, but its value has been increasing a lot in recent years. This is one of the major reasons to accept bitcoin payments on your website.
- Bitcoin is faster than other payment methods. Payments via credit cards can take weeks until you can use that money. With bitcoin, the user can use the funds usually in minutes once the payment is confirmed.
- Its fees are very low. In the case of Bitcoin, you just need to attach a small fee (often merely cents) for your payment to get processed by the bitcoin payment network as it doesn’t take any percentage from it.
Universally, any business can accept Bitcoin for its website that sells digital goods and services. This currency enables you to process payments with reduced fees and receive instant money. It is also suitable for global sites that require the transfer and receiving of international payments since it’s pretty faster than bank transfers across countries.
Also, read – What is Stablecoin and why they are important to your portfolio.
Different Ways to Accept Bitcoin Payments on your Website:
It’s time to introduce you to the three main ways of how to accept crypto payments on your website:
1. Coinbase Commerce –
Coinbase is one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges. It also offers a regular merchant service that makes it convenient for websites to accept bitcoin payments.
One can sign up for the platform’s merchant service either as a business or as an individual. Either way, you can start accepting Bitcoin payments on your site that go directly to your Coinbase account.
Afterward, you can use the service to convert those coins and withdraw them to your bank account. This will take a 1% fee as conversion charges. The service is entirely free other than that, and if you want to accept bitcoins as it is, you will not be charged any fee.
Overall, Coinbase is a great choice for businesses that are willing to hold bitcoin as an investment. If there is an increase in sales on your website, you can also benefit from setting up daily withdrawals to your bank.
Key Features of Coinbase:
- Enable Bitcoin or crypto payments on your website for any type of service you require.
- Withdraw your payments to your local bank with a 1% fee.
- Ask Coinbase to hold part of your earnings in Bitcoin and liquidate the rest.
2. Bitpay –
Similar to Coinbase, BitPay facilitates the user to receive Bitcoin or crypto payments and convert them into bank withdrawals for a 1% fee.
However, it is different from Coinbase as Bitpay doesn’t involve any double duty as an exchange. Rather, it’s all about payment processing with different ways for your customers to pay using – payment buttons, hosted checkouts, and embeddable invoices, a host of plugins, integrations, and so on.
Shopify and Steam are the major brands using this Bitcoin payment processor after Bitcoin has proved itself over and over again in the field.
It supports several integrations with major platforms where the user can accept one-time payments, set up subscriptions, and even receive donations thereon. Moreover, it also watches the invoicing and record-keeping part, which makes it ideal for websites looking for an all-in-one solution.
Through its Zero Price Volatility feature, Bitcoin secures you in every way possible. For a 1 percent transaction fee, this is significantly a pretty beneficial deal.
As the overall process is easy to set up, you can accept bitcoin payments without any hassle.
Key Features of Bitpay:
- It accepts bitcoin payments and money withdrawals to your local bank account anywhere across the world
- Set up one-time payments, regular subscriptions, and donations on the site
- Also watches the invoicing and record-keeping part for the user in case of Bitcoin payments.
3. Accept Payments Manually –
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were exclusively designed to make it convenient for users to make and receive payments without the interference of any middlemen. Thus, it’s easier to simply speak with your buyer and handle your own payment that will happen directly in the user’s wallet.
One of Bitcoin’s main selling points is that there is no need for third-party services. If you want to, you can accept bitcoin payments directly on your website with a leading bitcoin payment gateway without going to any other platform.
The process is relatively very simple – all you need to do is generate a Bitcoin address for each sale, or generate a QR code and give instructions on the amount of money people should transfer. Then you will be able to receive the coins in your wallet, and the order can be processed soon after the completion of the transaction.
This method of payment asks for invoicing and billing on your own. For this, you will be required to manage the delivery of the goods or items being sold on the website along with the payment address. To accept bitcoins, all of this can be done manually and cuts the need for middlemen.
That makes this method ideal for websites that only need to accept bitcoin payments timely to complete business transactions.
Key Features:
- Eliminates the need for middlemen to accept crypto payments
- Bitcoins can be stored in any wallet you want and can use them once the transaction is over.
- You can exchange your Bitcoin for any currency, using platforms like LocalBitcoin.
Wrapping Up:
Your website must capitalize on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as they are tremendously becoming more mainstream in recent years.
With the above methods, it undoubtedly makes a lot of sense to accept bitcoins more often on your website as a lot of people are now utilizing these. Luckily, there are a plethora of methods for accepting bitcoin as payment without much fuss and carry on the business activities smoothly.
While the world debates on the subjective cryptocurrencies topic, you can simply accept bitcoin payments on your website without inviting any risk.
Can you imagine that with the apt plugins, it’s simpler to accept cryptocurrency and instantly convert them to your preferred currency without worrying much about volatility?
This gives your customers a valuable service!
Bitcoin is the hottest trend in the finance world. Hence, we will be delighted to add that if you know how to pay in bitcoins, it can definitely add value to your brand image. With your target audience keeping up the interest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, you should look forward too.
