Bitcoin is gaining popularity the time has come to start considering Bitcoins as a mode of payment system for e-commerce. Also since the value of Bitcoin has only gone up since its inception makes it a worthy investment. The current

ecosystem is well developed and easily linked to bank accounts while Bitcoins follow an entirely different system altogether. We’ve found some payment gateways that have already been established and a few innovative ways to monetise content.

The hard way

If you don’t have a large volume of sales and wish to experiment with Bit- coins as a currency then you can do so manually which we’ve explained in the previous chapter. All you need to do is to create a wallet once you’ve downloaded a client. Then generate the address and amount you wish to sell a product for [do check the exchange rate when you calculate the amount]. Once the QR code is generated using the above details, simply give the customer the QR code by displaying it on a screen in your establishment. The customer can simply scan the code and pay for the goods. As volume increases, manually generating codes becomes cumbersome and you have to resort to an automated process. This is where payment processors come into the picture.

payment gateway

If volatility of the Bitcoin exchange rate is a cause for concern then you need not worry since these payment gateways allow you to set prices in your local currency which is then converted into Bitcoins at the moment of purchase so you’ll get an equivalent amount of Bitcoins. Here are some of the more popular payment gateways.

1.  Mt.Gox

There are quite a few payment gateways you can use without worrying about losing your finds. Mt.Gox has it’s own API for accepting payment straight into your Mt.Gox account. It doesn’t matter whether the consumer has a Mt.Gox account or not, even if they have a wallet then the store page will show the QR code once you’ve confirmed the order. So you can use any wallet software to pay. The Mt.Gox API can be found on their website along with the documentation on how to make use of it. Depending on what language your website was built on you can choose a plugin accordingly. For more information check the following link [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/ MtGox/API/HTTP/v1]

 

2.   Coinbase

Coinbase is another popular gateway with merchant services included. Which means they provide a wallet to store your Bitcoins which you can convert to real cash when you please.

 

3.   BIPS

BIPS offers a complete merchant solution and has features like mobile checkout, point of sale system, currency conversion etc. Moreover, you can use any of the pre-existing plugins to enable Bitcoin payments on any of the countless open source e-commerce website CMS. WordPress, woo commerce, magneto, zencart, wp e-commerce, opencart etc., are some of the commonly used CMS and they are all supported by BIPS.

 

4.   BitPay

This is a slightly older service since it has been around for some time. Like the previous payment processors, even BitPay offers plugins for all the popular e-commerce CMS.

 

5.   Coinkite

With offerings of hardware this POS is more catered to physical stores. They have their own billing system along with the Coinkite cards which can be used as normal debit cards. Though they haven’t released their system it does look promising. But what if the card system doesn’t catch around, you can 

still use the QR code which the Coinkite terminal comes with built-in. You can generate and scan QR codes using the terminal making it a replacement in entirety. Check a demonstration video here [http://vimeo.com/82032338].

 taxes

If you accept cash at your store then you do have to pay taxes for the same. Cash is just as anony- mous as Bitcoins. If there is a system in place then Bitcoins should be taxable too. But India does not have a system in place at the moment to handle the Bitcoin ecosystem and hence

there are no taxes at the moment. However, we are not affiliated with the Tax department in any way so we can’t be sure. If Bitcoins do turn out to be popular then by all means the government will find out a way of going about the system and taxing it. However, with more anonymous forms of Cryptocurrency on the horizon this should be a difficult task.

For all you bloggers and entrepreneurs

A lot of people have blogs and there are websites that curate content from multiple bloggers and host it on their website. A neat way to monetise the content is to start charging a subscription fee. This is where Bitmonet helps you out. With

Bitmonet you can just give a preview or a summary or a certain article. The moment someone is interested and wants to read it they have to pay up. So Bitmonet’s plugin allows you to create  vouchers or“passes” as they call it. You can have a Monetisation mechanism by your writing with this microtransaction system single article pass, a day pass or even monthly subscriptions. For the service they charge a small amount in terms of a transaction fee paid by the reader. They even have a demo page on their website to help you get a better understanding of what it does. [http://bitmonet.com/] Moreover, it has a plugin for WordPress and there is a code generator for Blogger and Tumblr so you can monetise that too.

Now, if you are an app developer then you can add Bitcoin as a pay- ment method to your apps as well. In collaboration with Coinbase the folks behind Bitmoney have come up with a SDK to add the ability to accept Bitcoins in android. http://bitmonet.com/blog/demo-video-monetize- you-android-app-with-bitcoins/

That was all that you needed to do in order to start receiving bitcoins via your e-commerce shop, blog, app or even your neighbourhood retail store.