As a store owner who accepts bitcoins, anyone who wants can track my income

[szangvil]

I decided to accept bitcoins in my online store only to realize that anyone who wants can type in my wallet address into the block explorer and see each and every transaction made to my address. This way, anyone can know hoe much money my business is making.  Today I obviously keep this data secret and never publish sales data...

Isn't that a HUGE reason for businesses not to accept bitcoins?

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[pc]

That's one of the reasons why the best practice is to generate a new address for every transaction.

[tutkarz]

That's one of the reasons why the best practice is to generate a new address for every transaction.

Its easy to do and when you get used to it then it makes work even easier. No need to look for transactions in a wallet when you can simply check one address and tell if it has funds or not.

[pinger]

That's one of the reasons why the best practice is to generate a new address for every transaction.

Its easy to do and when you get used to it then it makes work even easier. No need to look for transactions in a wallet when you can simply check one address and tell if it has funds or not.

But you should be alert of the backups being done daily, and I don't know how much can it cost to transfer the small transactions to one address.

[Lethn]

Bitcoin addresses seem to work a lot like I.P addresses, yes, people can see what you're doing, but you can always take steps to mask that and like with I.P addresses because there are so many of them it would take a particularly determined person to find out what's going into your account. I'm pretty sure though as people have said there are methods to avoid people stalking a particular address to find out just how much you're getting. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future people started developing VPN style security specifically for Bitcoin addresses so people can't spy on you at all.

I find Bitshop particularly interesting because it stores the Bitcoins on a code and you can take it out like a seperate account from that code to your Bitcoin client so maybe you should look at something like that perhaps for your business, it is a concern, don't get me wrong, but like with I.P addresses I think people shouldn't be too worried just yet until we start hearing about courts using Bitcoin addresses as viable evidence or criminals actively stalking addresses that shift a lot of Bitcoin.

[Jace]

I pre-generate 3000 addresses (+private keys of course, but they're not on the webserver) and backup those once.
In the webshop, for every new purchase a take an unused address from my pool. I can simply check that particular address to see if the payment has been made. Simple as pie.

[cosmicboy]

blockchain.info has an api that makes it easy to automatically generate new addresses.

[szangvil]

I am sorry to say, but it not user friendly at all.
Keeping track of so many addresses can be a real pain especially if I am a successful shop with 10 - 100 transaction a day.
It seems that bitcoin is not suitable for large scale # of transactions.

[wumpus]

I am sorry to say, but it not user friendly at all.
Keeping track of so many addresses can be a real pain especially if I am a successful shop with 10 - 100 transaction a day.
It seems that bitcoin is not suitable for large scale # of transactions.

How would you need to "keep track" of all the addresses? How do they give you more work? Addresses in bitcoin are very lightweight, and it's no problem to have thousands of them.
In retrospect calling them addresses was a bad idea, they should have been called "one time payment codes".

[Birdy]

You could also have 1 adress for every new customer.

[Schrankwand]

I am sorry to say, but it not user friendly at all.
Keeping track of so many addresses can be a real pain especially if I am a successful shop with 10 - 100 transaction a day.
It seems that bitcoin is not suitable for large scale # of transactions.

If you can store an email adress, you can store a payment adress. And also, you could do a transaction towards a forwarding adress that forwards again with not additional costs and problems and have everything sent to one wallet adress, if you wanted to.

[NLNico]

I am sorry to say, but it not user friendly at all.
Keeping track of so many addresses can be a real pain especially if I am a successful shop with 10 - 100 transaction a day.
It seems that bitcoin is not suitable for large scale # of transactions.

A lot of businesses use BitPay: https://bitpay.com/ (an alternative would be https://walletbit.com/ ) Especially because most businesses cannot risk for the Bitcoin price to go down and potentially lose dollars ("volatility risk".) But BitPay would probably solve "your" problem too? Obviously there is a fee involved (0.99% I believe - which is at least smaller than 3-4% of PayPal/creditcard.)

[Ditto]

And also, you could do a transaction towards a forwarding adress that forwards again with not additional costs and problems and have everything sent to one wallet adress, if you wanted to.

People can still track his income if everything is forwarded to one wallet, unless he uses a mixer.

[Mahn]

I am sorry to say, but it not user friendly at all.
Keeping track of so many addresses can be a real pain especially if I am a successful shop with 10 - 100 transaction a day.
It seems that bitcoin is not suitable for large scale # of transactions.

You do realize you can keep track of the addresses programatically, right? One would just need to code a service that abstracts this once.

[Driice]

You could also have 1 adress for every new customer.

This idea seems the best imo

[Littleshop]

I am sorry to say, but it not user friendly at all.
Keeping track of so many addresses can be a real pain especially if I am a successful shop with 10 - 100 transaction a day.
It seems that bitcoin is not suitable for large scale # of transactions.

Consider bitpay.com or other similar service. 

[gyverlb]

The OP is more and more likely to be a troll.

Notice that even though he understood that nobody can track his income if he uses Bitcoin properly (either generating one address per payment or using a payment platform like Bitpay) he didn't change his FUD title and instead switched to a "it's too complicated" rhetoric.

[BTC Books]

I decided to accept bitcoins in my online store only to realize that anyone who wants can type in my wallet address into the block explorer and see each and every transaction made to my address. This way, anyone can know hoe much money my business is making.  Today I obviously keep this data secret and never publish sales data...

Isn't that a HUGE reason for businesses not to accept bitcoins?

Ummm... no.

Aside from all the points in this thread about the simplicity of generating one address per sale, and so on (keeping multiple wallets for item categories, & etc.) - nobody knows how much your business is 'making' (i'm guessing you mean net income?) unless they have access to your Cost of Goods information.  Even assuming anyone would go to the trouble of tracking down every bitcoin address you assigned to every sale, without CoG and overhead information your raw gross is pretty meaningless.

I'm also going to take a guess that you're accepting forms of payment other than bitcoin.  And since these other payment types (credit cards and so forth) are managed by folks who give no thought to anything other than your best interests; and who would never dream of using, selling, or otherwise disseminating that information - to all comers, and for pennies - without your expressed consent, I guess your secrets are safe, hmmm?  [ / snark ]

[John (John K.)]

You're never supposed to use a single address for all transactions. 

[m3whiteknight]

how about use one address for a day and the next day use a new address. This way they will not know your total take in and easier for owner to manage.

[Stephen Gornick]

how about use one address for a day and the next day use a new address. This way they will not know your total take in and easier for owner to manage.

What if you had two customers pay the same amount at about the same time?  How would you know which customer paid and which didn't?

The proper way is for there to be a new Bitcoin address for each transaction. 

Shopping cart / E-commerce software already accommodates this.  Use a third-party payment processor if you want (e.g.. BitPay, Coinbase, etc.) and you'll never have to know nor care what a Bitcoin address is.

[Matthew N. Wright]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=103058;sa=showPosts

I don't think he's a troll, just very skeptical and (at least in this thread) seems to be missing the point.

Think of a bitcoin address as being a transaction ID in Paypal. Would you want every transaction ID to be the same for every customer's orders? Doesn't a system have to make a *new* transaction ID for every single order?

Your logic: "That sounds too complicated. I guess we shouldn't take money from people and provide products or services in exchange.."

edit: If you actually *did* have a business with thousands of orders, you'd already realize that this is part of the business and businesses either learn to deal with it effectively and efficiently, or they die. This simple fact precedes the bitcoin argument by miles.

[ruggedman_dan]

There is no real concern here.

Approximate sales numbers can be found on public databases accessed through your local library or even websites like Manta.

Point is, how much your buisness is making is not a secret whether you use bitcoins or not.

[auseeker]

I'm trying to integrate bitcoin sales into my business, but find the biggest obstacle is getting the customer to understand how bitcoin works and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner. Generating 1000's of addresses for each unique transaction is laughably easy compared to other issues related to accepting btc! Coinbase seems to be the most viable option for me....unless i want to BUY coins lol i think the vendor that can offer a working pre-loaded btc debit card to purchase real items from my store front will make a fortune!

[szangvil]

I am not a troll but I am skeptical.
I understood bitcoin is that one should hold a few addresses and use them, but I was wrong.

Considering them as a one-time transaction id makes more sense.

My store is not in English, but you can take a look at www.zolkan.com

[BTC Books]

I'm trying to integrate bitcoin sales into my business, but find the biggest obstacle is getting the customer to understand how bitcoin works and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner. Generating 1000's of addresses for each unique transaction is laughably easy compared to other issues related to accepting btc! Coinbase seems to be the most viable option for me....unless i want to BUY coins lol i think the vendor that can offer a working pre-loaded btc debit card to purchase real items from my store front will make a fortune!

Ur doing it wrong:  you only want one address per transaction.

...and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner.

Why not take two sides of those transactions with your customers, instead of just the usual, single "buy my stuff" side?  Why not offer to sell them bitcoin too?  If they're curious about bitcoin, but they find that acquiring coin is difficult, sell them some coin.  Offer them the best spread available, since you make your real profit off whatever you sell in your store.  There... now wasn't that easy?

Isn't that your job:  to make things easy for your customers and see to it that they get what they want?

[szangvil]

Isn't that your job:  to make things easy for your customers and see to it that they get what they want?

You are right

[auseeker]

I'm trying to integrate bitcoin sales into my business, but find the biggest obstacle is getting the customer to understand how bitcoin works and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner. Generating 1000's of addresses for each unique transaction is laughably easy compared to other issues related to accepting btc! Coinbase seems to be the most viable option for me....unless i want to BUY coins lol i think the vendor that can offer a working pre-loaded btc debit card to purchase real items from my store front will make a fortune!

Ur doing it wrong:  you only want one address per transaction.

...and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner.

Why not take two sides of those transactions with your customers, instead of just the usual, single "buy my stuff" side?  Why not offer to sell them bitcoin too?  If they're curious about bitcoin, but they find that acquiring coin is difficult, sell them some coin.  Offer them the best spread available, since you make your real profit off whatever you sell in your store.  There... now wasn't that easy?

Isn't that your job:  to make things easy for your customers and see to it that they get what they want?

Lol i phrased that incorrectly. I generate 1000's of addresses in advance and only use ONE per sale/transaction. I've only found a few customers that are willing and/or able to buy with btc. I generally show them coinbase or mt gox and explain the wait time. I also turn them on to OTC trades, but finding reliable local sellers is tough. So me being a store front AND otc seller would seem to be logical. And i do my job quite well thank you. Sales figures would indicate that 

[niko]

I am sorry to say, but it not user friendly at all.
Keeping track of so many addresses can be a real pain especially if I am a successful shop with 10 - 100 transaction a day.
It seems that bitcoin is not suitable for large scale # of transactions.

Large scale implies you are serious about your business. This implies proper effort related to accounting, supply chain management, legal, IT, and - yes - Bitcoin infrastructure. What you are complaining about is trivial, to say the least. Get serious or get out.

[szangvil]

If I generate addresses on the fly for each transaction, this mean I have to save the key to each address on the server. For many small business the use shared hosting, security will be a major issue.
And even if I have an address for each transaction, one can still figure out how much I am selling. I will have to turn those coins into fiat money in some market. So I will have to transfer them to some main address...
If I generate the addresses offline, it solves the security problem. But I don't see a way to hide my income from a determined "spy".
Bitcoin may be anonymous, but its open ledgiure blockchain may eventually kill it.

[edd]

If I generate addresses on the fly for each transaction, this mean I have to save the key to each address on the server. For many small business the use shared hosting, security will be a major issue.

If I generate the addresses offline, it solves the security problem.

You just addressed your own concern.

And even if I have an address for each transaction, one can still figure out how much I am selling. I will have to turn those coins into fiat money in some market. So I will have to transfer them to some main address...

Why would you have to transfer them to a "main address"? If you're going to sell them on an exchange like Mt. Gox, it basically works like a mixing service. I once had someone "examine" an address of mine, not realizing it was one generated by Mt.Gox and he congratulated me on my success since he could see that "I" had traded millions of bitcoins. 

But I don't see a way to hide my income from a determined "spy".

Conventional accounting doesn't "hide" anyone's income. Merchants looking to keep company business a secret from prying eyes, ie auditors, cook their books.

Bitcoin may be anonymous, but its open ledgiure blockchain may eventually kill it.

This is a common misconception. Bitcoin doesn't require identifying information from you for it to work but it is not inherently anonymous. Many here (myself included) would call its transparency a feature, not a fault.

[mrkent]

They can be basically used as transaction numbers, which you need to do as a business to identify individual transactions.

Even having a single address to use for every transaction is not completely transparent. You can just send money to that address yourself, to obscure the real number.

[szangvil]

It seems there is room for more start ups like coinbase and bitpay to offer such solutions.