Coinpayments is for hosted wallet solutions and general payment gateway for cryptocurrency ("buy now" buttons, shopping carts, and things like that). They aren't an actual payment processor like Bitpay. They can't convert coins to fiat, so it's not a merchant alternative for Bitpay. But as a consumer, I'd like to see them succeed.
Actually, that would make Coinpayment a proper crypto gateway if that's really the case. The problem with Bitpay and payment processors like them is they're not at all helping Bitcoin gain adoption. If anything, they're preventing it, since they're giving a way for merchants to NOT accept Bitcoin, and yet still access the Bitcoin user market. As you can see now, they're running into a lot of problems, which the Bitcoin user is always going to have to pay for.
No argument there. It's just not the market that Bitpay caters to. I'm glad that people are realizing that merchant adoption via Bitpay/Coinbase is just an avenue for people to sell BTC. It doesn't do much for adoption besides the occasional advertisement for Bitcoin ("Bitcoin accepted here")...... but it is certainly negative for the price since Bitpay merchants have no interest in becoming part of the BTC economy. They just want dollars. That's why I don't really care about merchant adoption and never did. Merchants will flock to Bitcoin (and not through payment processors) in time.
BTW, there are a few issues I've seen now regarding Bitpay no longer accepting transactions despite being confirmed on blockchain. This user's issue (
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2791597.msg28550578#msg28550578) seems to suggest they're not even accepting direct wallet payments now, instead, requiring you to go through some kind of payment portal?
Bitcoin's supposed to allow people to pay directly to each other, this is just ridiculous, if true.
They began mandating compatibility with BIP70 (Payment Protocol), but I'm not sure why that would lead to the OP's issue there. I did notice the change, and inherently it
feels less private since so many details are transmitted (no user input). But reading through the details, it's not clear why it should degrade privacy. I don't think it's really feasible for Bitpay to blacklist VPN addresses. It's probably a good idea to hide as much information from Bitpay as possible, though. They are a jackpot for government/law enforcement.
Edit: after checking they actually do fiat settlement to US and Euro merchants.
If true, they should update their FAQ. To convert coins to fiat currency, they tell people to buy gift cards and merchandise with coins...
