Bitcoin Ecommerce Solutions
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I'm hoping to add cryptocoin payments on one of my websites as an option.
Is there a widget I can embed on a sales page that features something like:
"One year service: $750 or [0.75 BTC] <<click here to pay with BTC>>"
Where the widget displays the current equivalent value for the coin and clicking to pay will allow them to send payment to my wallet.
I'd do it manually - since the maximum number of clients is limited - but coin values are always fluctuating, and the only other option that comes to mind would be coordinating a real-time chat with a client so we can agree upon the exact value at that time and then they send the payment (or something like that)...
Is there a widget I can embed on a sales page that features something like:
"One year service: $750 or [0.75 BTC] <<click here to pay with BTC>>"
Where the widget displays the current equivalent value for the coin and clicking to pay will allow them to send payment to my wallet.
I'd do it manually - since the maximum number of clients is limited - but coin values are always fluctuating, and the only other option that comes to mind would be coordinating a real-time chat with a client so we can agree upon the exact value at that time and then they send the payment (or something like that)...
Both of these are the price of the Merchant taking control of the subscription in cryptoville.
I suspect someone will offer a way to automate this without a 3rd party software soon enough; but even when they do, it is too passive for the rebillers around here.
Coinbase isn't fly-by-night... They've got several layers of angel investors and even some of the core devs of bitcoin work there, like Garzic does at bitpay. You can trust them bro; unlike your sad host.
Hey, maybe you should create and launch that passive-rebill software as your own product; you'd be perfect for it.
No, that isn't the question at all. Take a look at the blockchain sometime; many millions of dollars in btc are spent each day at places other than exchanges.
We DO spend our coins:
- Sometimes because services are offered in BTC that we can't access otherwise. (New products & services)
- Sometimes because we want to see an existing merchant accept bitcoin, so we're helping their business in return. (Existing products & services)
- Sometimes because we need the anonymity. (Porn, Gambling & drugs, who would use those?)
- Sometimes because we feel we have new wealth and want to actualize it.
- Sometimes because we are just trying to live in the bitcoin economy, because we hate uncle same, governments in general, or the dollar.
- Sometimes because we are just true-believers in BTC and think of these investments as building our future wealth in bitcoin's price growth. It's easy for this group of folks to see how the 10,000 BTC pizza was the best investment ever made by mankind.
I am guilty of four of the items on this list and have spent about 2 whole bitcoins to date on a variety of services.
Yes in the sense that we're betting on the network to become mainstream, no in the sense that we spend all our time on the exchanges buying and selling coins to make a profit... That's actually a very small part of the community, not in the heart of it at all.
Of course. The two big/famous ones right now are at bitpay and coinbase. Both have fees, but are 1/10th or less what a credit card company would charge.
Compare them for yourself, both widgets work fine for beginners. When you get into reoccurring payments, there are a few reasons Coinbase is better than bitpay.
http://bitpay.com/faq
http://coinbase.com/merchants
yeah, coinbase does that ... you set price in dollars and they transfer to what the bitcoin amount should be. We'll be finding out soon enough if the btc amount fluctuates when the rebill hits ... I'm assuming it does.
And yeah, coinbase says they are free if you do <$1,000,000 in sales ... I'm sure there are hidden costs somewhere but i don't see them. They also pay the miners fee if the transfer is coinbase to coinbase.
Coinbase only accepts rebills if both parties have a coinbase account ... this allows them to transact on behalf of either party with permission. Since bitcoin is a push technology, the rebilling aspect wouldn't be possible (or building the tech to do so would be challenging) without them having some kind of control. Automating subscriptions is the whole point of a rebill ... out of site, out of mind, keep them coins coming.
Missed this earlier, thanks for the reply!
After taking the night to think on it, I agree. I'll probably hook up this rebill with coinbase for convenience & also create a system that expires after 30 days and upon login the user is prompted to fund their account if expired.
Well it's not as necessary to life as food is, but marketers are nothing without traffic ... so it does have some value and some IMers are early btc adopters. I think there's a fair chance there's some amount of overlap. Cash works too, I'm into keeping all options open.
I don't see speculators as users ... Users transact, speculators speculate. Both are required for a thriving ecosystem. The speculators ARE important because for the validity of btc to prosper, you've got to be able to get in and out of them. Speculators make this possible by burning through 1000's of transactions a day, this has a stabilizing effect on the price.
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After taking the night to think on it, I agree. I'll probably hook up this rebill with coinbase for convenience & also create a system that expires after 30 days and upon login the user is prompted to fund their account if expired.
Well it's not as necessary to life as food is, but marketers are nothing without traffic ... so it does have some value and some IMers are early btc adopters. I think there's a fair chance there's some amount of overlap. Cash works too, I'm into keeping all options open.
I don't see speculators as users ... Users transact, speculators speculate. Both are required for a thriving ecosystem. The speculators ARE important because for the validity of btc to prosper, you've got to be able to get in and out of them. Speculators make this possible by burning through 1000's of transactions a day, this has a stabilizing effect on the price.
CoinBase is certainly the most legitimate. BitPay is great, it's owned by a long-time btc proponent, and it was basically first to market. But Coinbase seems to have more legs at this point.
By the way, if you see some fo the protocol extensions that are being added, contract support is coming, and a bunch of other amazing features. It's amazing what it one will be able to do within the currency itself.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts
Yep, I'm probably most stoked about contracts. Looks like 2014 will be the year for bitcoin to finally be worth more than just money.
Proof Of Existence
You can trust them bro; unlike your sad host.
Yeah, I'm pretty confident it was that host (my client / partner chose). Server was locked down, no sign of unauthorized entry, wallet.dat file is in /root/, and somehow gets magically replaced with a blank, unencrypted wallet.dat file. How else does that happen?
We're good now though. I grabbed a new dedicated box, set 'er up, locked it down, and everything is humming along like a well oiled machine now. We're still getting hammered 5000+ times/hour, but nobody is getting into anything anymore.
I'm actually quite proud of that, because these guys are good. They will search out and exploit the tiniest of holes in your security. Cunts are relentless.
Ohhh, I have bigger plans than that, but yes, that is one of them. Just updated my Theme Library, and even have a couple nice member area themes available now. Couple more days to get my ducks in a row, and I'll begin offering bitcoin devel services. I have multi-currency arbitrage packages available, and everything. Load of stuff sitting here.
But yeah, for you guys setting up Bitcoin-centric sites, after you've been hacked once or twice, feel free to drop me a PM, and I'll get you setup so you can sleep at night knowing your funds are secure.
Update: coinbase kind of sucks on support and had a few out of the box bugs
1: the rebill was static in BTC, not USD. This is bad because it gives the buyer the option of keeping the subscription at a cheaper price (btc fluctuation) or cancelling and resubscribing if it's more expensive. The seller is not afforded the same option since doing that will cancel the subscription, booting the customer until (if) they resubscribe.
2: The callback system sucked, data sent said that the btc price was fluctuating when in reality (meaning logging into my account) the opposite is true. Also custom parameters were not sent so I have few options available to keep the rebilled payments associated with a user account.
3: Two support tickets about this have been created, neither have been answered in 5 days. Hell, I can't even view the support thread because neither have been approved for public consumption.
If questions aren't answered in a few days, i'll be gameplanning away from a btc rebill and going with expiring 30 day accounts. This tech is still raw so perhaps checking back in a year from now will give more optioins.
1: the rebill was static in BTC, not USD. This is bad because it gives the buyer the option of keeping the subscription at a cheaper price (btc fluctuation) or cancelling and resubscribing if it's more expensive. The seller is not afforded the same option since doing that will cancel the subscription, booting the customer until (if) they resubscribe.
2: The callback system sucked, data sent said that the btc price was fluctuating when in reality (meaning logging into my account) the opposite is true. Also custom parameters were not sent so I have few options available to keep the rebilled payments associated with a user account.
3: Two support tickets about this have been created, neither have been answered in 5 days. Hell, I can't even view the support thread because neither have been approved for public consumption.
If questions aren't answered in a few days, i'll be gameplanning away from a btc rebill and going with expiring 30 day accounts. This tech is still raw so perhaps checking back in a year from now will give more optioins.
This sounds like the biggest issue of the 3, but it still doesn't seem too important. A lot of rebills rely on customers simply forgetting or not caring enough to cancel the subscription, so the majority aren't going to put in the effort to check the exchange rates and cancel/resub all over again every time. As a general rule of thumb: if something requires effort, people won't do it.
I think the % of people who do that will be negligible. Furthermore, since the price of btc generally increases, the extra value you're getting from all the retained customers would vastly outweigh what you're losing from the scummy customers.
Coinbase cust support is pretty bad (for merchants and customers) so that's just something you have to deal with until their company can afford to expand. Most of these bitcoin companies have pretty horrible customer service (BTC-e's level of customer service is rivaled only by McDonalds').
