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Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

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Re: Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

#11

Post by TekMol »

Let me know if I am wrong about using crypto for payments:

My understanding is that a big, maybe the biggest, obstacle is taxes.

In countries like the USA and Germany, the way I understand tax law is: When you buy something with crypto, that counts as a sale of an asset. So you have to document what the fair value of the coffee you bought is at that point in time, subtract what you paid for the crypto you used and then pay taxes on the difference.

This makes it more or less impossible to use crypto for payments, right? Every coffee you buy would have to be documented and evaluated and be part of your tax declaration.

Re: Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

#12

Post by ben165 »

NavinF wrote: post #7
yunohn wrote: post #3

Maybe I misunderstand the author’s goal, but using the “random number” from the payment amount and regularly checking wallet balance, just seem incredibly rudimentary compared to an actual payments system…

Yeah normally you’d create a new address to receive payments from each user. Addresses are essentially free so this is how everyone else figures out which user deposited money into their cryptocurrency wallet.

I did this in my first project. As I said, UTXO blockchains are intended to work like that. But with every address you create your daemon has to look for changes there. Your wallet file can grow like crazy if you don't built some spam protection in your system.

For blockchains with the balance model you actually use only one address. There are solutions for Stellar to provide an unique address but this is not implemented yet.

The memo tag/field is the way to go. But as I said, it isn't widely implemented.

Re: Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

#13

Post by woodruffw »

TekMol wrote: post #11

Let me know if I am wrong about using crypto for payments: My understanding is that a big, maybe the biggest, obstacle is taxes. In countries like the USA and Germany, the way I understand tax law is: When you buy something with crypto, that counts as a sale of an asset. So you have to document what the fair value of the coffee you bought is at that point in time, subtract what you paid for the crypto you used and th…

Your understanding is correct, at least for the US.

Re: Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

#14

Post by NavinF »

yunohn wrote: post #9
NavinF wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah normally you’d create a new address to receive payments from each user. Addresses are essentially free so this is how everyone else figures out which user deposited money into their cryptocurrency wallet.

That also seems like an inefficient way to handle transactions. This is honestly surprisingly, I always assumed crypto had better payment solutions! After all, that’s what they all proclaim to be - not speculative gambling or scamming.

Ehh I guess you could ask users what addresses they are sending from or use the memo/credit-to field in the transaction as the article mentioned. The latter is how bank wire transfers work, but it’s inefficient for humans so nobody does that.

I’m not sure what you think is inefficient about spending microseconds generating a public/private key pair. This is done once per user. You then verify signatures to “accept” payments.

Re: Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

#15

Post by pvinis »

ben165 wrote: post #8
sentrms wrote: post #2

As a crypto enthusiast I looked into what it would take to accept ADA payments on my membership site without relying on a payment provider. I was surprised by the quality of the documentation and realized it was quite feasible to implement. I decided against it as the sentiment around crypto (even a proof of stake chain like Cardano) would probably have a negative net result on customer acquisition and retention. It…

Yes, that's a big problem. You might harm your reputation including a Crypto payment option.

There are people, myself included, that appreciate a crypto payment inclusion.

I am proud to say I have used crypto to buy a physical souvenir, a steam game, and a yearly subscription to a service.

I would gladly do that more if they allow me.

Re: Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

#16

Post by yunohn »

NavinF wrote: post #14
yunohn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That also seems like an inefficient way to handle transactions. This is honestly surprisingly, I always assumed crypto had better payment solutions! After all, that’s what they all proclaim to be - not speculative gambling or scamming.

Ehh I guess you could ask users what addresses they are sending from or use the memo/credit-to field in the transaction as the article mentioned. The latter is how bank wire transfers work, but it’s inefficient for humans so nobody does that. I’m not sure what you think is inefficient about spending microseconds generating a public/private key pair. This is done once per user. You then verify signatures to “accept” p…

> memo/credit-to field in the transaction as the article mentioned.

I assume there should be an API to prefill this, making it easier for humans. Could literally just be the unique order ID or a hash thereof.

> I guess you could ask users what addresses they are sending

Why would you need to ask? Isn’t there a captive payment portal API, like with popular wallets eg Metamask?

> I’m not sure what you think is inefficient about spending microseconds generating a public/private key pair.

The problem is not in generation. Firstly, it pollutes the blockchain with single use addresses, though I guess maybe people don’t care. But AFAIK, the website would need to pay fees on a per-wallet-transaction basis when cashing out right? Payments need to pay fees anyway, but cashing out from a single wallet would be cheaper than this mess.

Re: Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

#18

Post by ben165 »

Grimburger wrote: post #6

> You can purchase fake items in this test shop with testnet coins of Solana and Stellar. > Please let me know what you think of it. Literally not a single point of contact anywhere to be found anywhere on the site. I guess you mean here instead? Also your login error message is just a db response :)

Sorry, just use the top "index" link to the main blog website. At the bottom you find the imprint and my contact details.

I'm going to look into the error need probably to catch it.

Re: Difficulties of providing a crypto payment system on your website

#19

Post by herbst »

shp0ngle wrote: post #17

The biggest error is to assume people want to pay with cryptocurrency. They just want to speculate on it; first buy, then sell. Nobody actually pays with cryptocurrency. edit: ahh it’s in the actual article. Never mind.

To be fair that assumption is wrong if you look at more weird specific niches. Crypto payments definitely have a place, also outside of drug markets.
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