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Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

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

#101

Post by doomroot »

arcticbull wrote: post #92
tcoff91 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They definitely aren't. They're using Chivo which is a centralized custodial wallet solution. Transfers are just updates to their MySQL store - as they should be. Chivo only uses Strike's private LN nodes nobody else is allowed to peer with when facilitating an international transfer -- between two of Maller's own accounts. Chivo is not crypto. And that's what most folks there are being forced to use by the local dic…

Forbes is reporting[0] that they are using BitGo. FYI Salvadorians are not required to use chivo at all. The interoperability is the exciting part not chivo.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/09/07/el-...

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

#102

Post by derangedHorse »

q1w2 wrote: post #93

I don't have a recommendation - I just want to make you aware of a major issue other stores have... > We do not intend to convert to traditional currency unless needed. This is a big risk due to cash flows. Most stores operate on a margin on merchandise that is under 10%, with a turnover on goods averaging months. If a currency fluctuates in value more than ~10% over several months, this can easily drive an otherwise…

I imagine whatever cryptocurrency payment system they end up implementing will still be used by a minority of customers, so most of their existing stockpiles will still most likely be held in their domestic currency.

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

#103

Post by dQw4w9WgXcQ »

I would recommend something like Algorand for receiving payments. Stable network (zero fork), fast settlement times, extremely low fees + carbon usage. Circle has a full API for receiving USDC payments on top of Algorand here:

https://www.circle.com/en/usdc-multichain/algorand

https://developers.circle.com/docs/getting-started-with-the-...

USDC can of course all be swapped across various chains. Probably the cleanest and fastest crypto API payment gateway right now.

On the Algorand side there's a React toolkit for developing the ability to receive/send:

https://github.com/headline-design/pipeline-ui

https://github.com/headline-design/algo-pay

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

#104

Post by exo762 »

q1w2 wrote: post #93

I don't have a recommendation - I just want to make you aware of a major issue other stores have... > We do not intend to convert to traditional currency unless needed. This is a big risk due to cash flows. Most stores operate on a margin on merchandise that is under 10%, with a turnover on goods averaging months. If a currency fluctuates in value more than ~10% over several months, this can easily drive an otherwise…

> If a currency fluctuates in value

This is why you want to use stablecoins. There is plenty to choose from.

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

#105

Post by doovd »

exo762 wrote: post #104
q1w2 wrote: post #93

I don't have a recommendation - I just want to make you aware of a major issue other stores have... > We do not intend to convert to traditional currency unless needed. This is a big risk due to cash flows. Most stores operate on a margin on merchandise that is under 10%, with a turnover on goods averaging months. If a currency fluctuates in value more than ~10% over several months, this can easily drive an otherwise…

> If a currency fluctuates in value This is why you want to use stablecoins. There is plenty to choose from.

So just use fiat?!

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

#106

Post by foepys »

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…

Is this for real? Do merchants really rely on some opaque third-party service to determine which accounts are able to pay? Is this third-party able to essentially blacklist aka unbank accounts at their will, without a legal appeal process?

How can a system that supports this be considered better than USD or EUR?

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

#107

Post by SQueeeeeL »

exo762 wrote: post #104
q1w2 wrote: post #93

I don't have a recommendation - I just want to make you aware of a major issue other stores have... > We do not intend to convert to traditional currency unless needed. This is a big risk due to cash flows. Most stores operate on a margin on merchandise that is under 10%, with a turnover on goods averaging months. If a currency fluctuates in value more than ~10% over several months, this can easily drive an otherwise…

> If a currency fluctuates in value This is why you want to use stablecoins. There is plenty to choose from.

This just sounds like cash with extra steps

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

#108

Post by PretzelPirate »

dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote: post #103

I would recommend something like Algorand for receiving payments. Stable network (zero fork), fast settlement times, extremely low fees + carbon usage. Circle has a full API for receiving USDC payments on top of Algorand here: https://www.circle.com/en/usdc-multichain/algorand https://developers.circle.com/docs/getting-started-with-the-... USDC can of course all be swapped across various chains. Probably the cleanest…

I’m not sure I’d want to accept payments on Algorand since they have centralized relay nodes that can shut down the chain.

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

#109

Post by joshmarlow »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #57
hda2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm still wrapping my head around the concept of Coin Mixing, but I wonder how helpful that would be - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/coinjoin.asp
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