Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#51

Post by nprateem » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:24 AM UTC

lvs wrote: post #39

nprateem wrote: post #24

Just list on the particl marketplace [1] and accept payments in part directly. They're working on a decentralised exchanged (DEX) to seemlessly accept payments in different currencies. [1] https://particl.io/marketplace/sell/

I'm so confused by this. This is a desktop app that you have to download and install to buy and sell things in a particular currency?

It's a marketplace like Amazon on the blockchain. So depending on what the OP is selling they could just list there. It currently requires a desktop app but a website is planned.

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#52

Post by NicoJuicy » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:32 AM UTC

tcoff91 wrote: post #9

anonymoushn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this work? The only instances of people attempting to use LN I've witnessed ended in failure.

Everyone using Bitcoin in El Salvador is using lightning network for the most part.

And if you believe Bukele, they have more transactions than VISA

( 65 K / second)

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#53

Post by ilaksh » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 7:54 AM UTC

I recommend Algorand. Created by Turing Award winner Silvio Micali at MIT plus other great engineers. Fees less than a penny. Clears in 5 seconds, confirm within about 20 seconds. Powerful smart contract language and built in asset feature. Supported by Coinbase and others (Kraken I think for example).

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#54

Post by hda2 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 8:27 AM UTC

Addendum since I can't edit my post anymore: we already accept traditional payment methods (credit cards and bank transfers). We want to accept cryptocurrency /in addition/ to those methods.

We are a registered business (not US-based).

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#55

Post by hda2 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 8:35 AM UTC

itake wrote: post #18

I used https://electrum.org/ for accepting btc payments and it worked fine. The bigger issues I had that I am skeptical any self-hosted options have is protecting your wallets from being poisoned by 'black' bitcoin. Coinbase (and maybe others?) keeps a blacklist of banned wallets (stolen or associated with crime or gambling[0]). If a customer pays you from a black address, you may end up poisoning your entire crypto…

> poisoned by 'black' bitcoin.

Can you expand further on this? Is there a public list of blacklisted addresses we can download/query? How far does the association extend for an address to be blacklisted by other entities?

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#56

Post by ajkdhcb2 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

RustyRussell wrote: post #14

anonymoushn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this work? The only instances of people attempting to use LN I've witnessed ended in failure.

LN dev here. That seems strange, though in the last 6 years we have improved in all fronts. It's been a while since I've had a payment outright fail, TBH.

I used BlueWallet a few weeks ago and kept hitting routing errors. I had to mess around with it for more than a day and transfer between several different wallets before finally escaped with my funds, so not very keen to try again

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#57

Post by ajkdhcb2 » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 9:17 AM UTC

hda2 wrote: post #55

itake wrote: post #18

I used https://electrum.org/ for accepting btc payments and it worked fine. The bigger issues I had that I am skeptical any self-hosted options have is protecting your wallets from being poisoned by 'black' bitcoin. Coinbase (and maybe others?) keeps a blacklist of banned wallets (stolen or associated with crime or gambling[0]). If a customer pays you from a black address, you may end up poisoning your entire crypto…

> poisoned by 'black' bitcoin. Can you expand further on this? Is there a public list of blacklisted addresses we can download/query? How far does the association extend for an address to be blacklisted by other entities?

There are not public lists, with exception of official government sanctioned addresses. Only the chain analysis companies have the (valuable) data so the future seems to be that businesses will need to pay for a subscription and share data with them, if you want to transact BTC. The algorithms are not clear either, because that information could be used by adversaries with tainted coins to try to evade detection

For this reason I would suggest using btcpayserver to only accept monero, since it is fungible like cash; for other cryptocurrencies I just don't know how to check if you're dealing with sanctioned entities etc without a middleman

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#58

Post by spottybanana » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 9:43 AM UTC

anonymoushn wrote: post #8

Geee wrote: post #7

For best experience, be sure to accept Bitcoin with Lightning Network. I'm not sure about industry standard, but BTCPay Server[0] and OpenNode[1] seem to be the most popular ones. BTCPay Server is open-source and self-hosted. [0] https://btcpayserver.org [1] https://www.opennode.com

Does this work? The only instances of people attempting to use LN I've witnessed ended in failure.

I have been using LN quite a lot for casual payments in the last years. There have been a lot of small hiccups but recently it have been working very fluently for me.

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#59

Post by anonymoushn » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:07 AM UTC

apalmer wrote: post #19

Amazing how their is a currency who's been rising for 10 years that you actually have to 'solve' for how to spend it.

It's hardly trivial to accept dollars sir.

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#60

Post by anonymoushn » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:08 AM UTC

__d wrote: post #34

tcgv wrote: post #29

Most comments suggest using BTC in various ways, as usual. I'm curious as to why hasn't a stablecoin been adoptet/gained mainstream traction for this use case yet? They seem like a perfect fit for making digital payments while preventing exposure to crypto volatility.

The "perfect fit for making digital payments while preventing exposure to crypto volatility" is ummm ... fiat with Visa/Mastercard? Which is exactly why no cryptocurrency has gained mainstream traction: it's solving a "problem" that doesn't exist for most people, and doing so in a way that introduces new problems.

Maybe merchants don't want to pay 5% or whatever