The Bitcoin Asia convention held on Could 9 and 10, 2024 in Hong Kong demonstrated a big milestone within the adoption of bitcoin as a authentic medium of alternate.
This text outlines the methods and applied sciences applied to facilitate seamless bitcoin transactions for items and providers over the 2 days, leveraging the capabilities of self-custodial fee processing by means of BTCPay Server.
Govt Abstract
All through the occasion, 212 Bitcoin transactions have been processed, involving 4 distributors and totaling 7,714,253 sats, equal to 36,974.63 HKD.
The typical transaction was roughly 36,560 sats (about 175 HKD). Notably, the system maintained full operational uptime with zero failures in bitcoin base chain or lightning community transactions.
What’s BTCPay Server?
With banks, you haven’t any choice between self-custody or custodial fee processing.
For instance, for those who wished to run a self-custody enterprise with fiat, you would need to run a money payments-only enterprise, which comes with big threat of theft when centralizing capital in a single place. This could additionally restrict your buyer base.
To develop our financial outreach past our native economies, we created fee networks and fee processors that enable for digital transactions.
However what have been the results of implementing custodial fee methods over time? Why can’t we’ve got a digital self-custodial fee processor? What improvements, freedoms, and information do prospects & companies need to sacrifice on account of custodial fee processing? What if my digital type of fee (e.g., bank card, Apple Pay, Venmo) declines despite the fact that I’ve the funds in my account? What priceless information — each monetary and private — am I now making a gift of without cost due to these providers?
With BTCPay Server, we are able to facilitate the expertise of cash-like transactions digitally, which means we are able to make digital funds peer-to-peer. Transactions don’t require private info from the payer, nor do they require an middleman. This eliminates the dangers that come from each transacting with money and relying on an middleman.
BTCPay Server is free to make use of and fully open supply, which means BTCPay Server will not be an organization — it is merely code.
BTCPay Server is a bitcoin fee processor that permits companies and people to obtain funds instantly, with out counting on third-party providers.
Not like conventional fee processors, BTCPay Server does custody funds and doesn’t cost any transaction charges.
BTCPay Server is a extremely adaptable fee processor. It may be built-in into present methods with APIs, and each people and companies can tailor their fee processing expertise to fulfill particular wants, guaranteeing a seamless integration into their operational frameworks.
Along with the options listed above, BTCPay Server helps what are generally known as Prism Funds.
This performance permits for the trustless distribution of funds throughout a number of accounts on the level of sale. This modern strategy essentially rethinks the movement of cash, enabling real-time compensation for stakeholders and staff.
The best way to Use BTCPay Server
Step 1: Setup a BTCPay Server
For a complete information on establishing a BTCPay Server, see this full step-by-step tutorial on YouTube.
Step 2: Making certain Liquidity and Worth Stability
On the time of writing, the Lightning Community is the one Bitcoin scaling answer that maintains bitcoin’s cash-like properties in making funds with BTC.
The Lightning Community facilitates prompt settlement, does not require any KYC and presents close to non-existent charges, very similar to the expertise of utilizing money.
For the Lightning Community to operate, it wants liquidity. Offering liquidity typically means working and managing a node your self, however BTCPay Server does this for you.
On the convention, BTCPay Servers nodes, along side Blink, which served as a liquidity supplier for the convention, operated flawlessly, guaranteeing no fee failures.
Along with using an additional liquidity supplier, we additionally employed a worth hedging answer in case we skilled bitcoin worth volatility throughout the convention.
This threat wanted to be addressed as a result of distributors who accepted bitcoin on the convention wished to be paid out of their native foreign money as soon as the convention ended.
A bearish situation for a vendor can be receiving a $10 fee bitcoin on the time of sale whereas the value of bitcoin was excessive, after which, throughout the course of the convention, bitcoin’s worth may have dropped 50%.
In the sort of state of affairs, when it was time to carry out a settlement within the native foreign money for the seller, they’d solely obtain $5 of their native foreign money, which is unacceptable.
To mitigate this threat, we used “stablesats“, a Blink characteristic that permits for immediate conversion into an artificial model of a steady foreign money (such because the Hong Kong greenback) on the level of sale.
Extra info on Blink options and providers right here.
Step 3: Deploying Bodily POS Machines
Regardless of the digital nature of bitcoin transactions, bodily point-of-sale (POS) machines have been deployed to present a well-known checkout expertise to attendees and distributors.
We used POS machines from Bitcoinize. These gadgets additionally facilitated the issuance of bodily receipts upon request.
Step 4: Simplifying Bitcoin Entry with Bolt Playing cards
To facilitate seamless bitcoin transactions on the convention, we additionally utilized Bolt Playing cards.
These customized “Bitcoin Asia” version playing cards, enabled attendees to transform fiat foreign money into bitcoin to be used inside the occasion. The playing cards allowed for easy NFC tapping at POS gadgets.
Step 5: Coaching for Retailers and Staff
A coaching session was carried out earlier than the convention to familiarize distributors with easy methods to use BTCPay Server.
The ten-minute session was efficient, with minimal questions from individuals.
A gaggle chat was arrange for help, which remained largely inactive because of the clean operation of the fee system.
A full video of the coaching session is offered right here.
Conclusion
Due to free and open supply software program like BTCPay Server and modern options from corporations like Blink, transacting with bitcoin transactions on the Bitcoin Asia convention was extremely simple.
The success of utilizing BTCPay server on the Bitcoin Asia convention demonstrated the potential for wider adoption of bitcoin in on a regular basis commerce.
Think about using such options to your subsequent occasion or inside your native financial system.
