Looking for feedback from bitcoin community - We BTC

[we-btc]

We feel that the biggest hurdle to getting Bitcoin adopted on a large scale is to have businesses accepting bitcoin for their products and services.  As customers walk into stores both in person and online they need to see the "Bitcoin Accepted Here" signs.  We are starting a campaign to get businesses embracing the concepts and currency in their stores.

We also feel that the key to this campaign is to keep Bitcoin peer-to-peer and decentralized.

If you could spend a few minutes to visit https://webtc.io and give us your feedback we would really appreciate it.

Thank you

Tom McPhail

[1714857663]

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[1714857663]

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[DaveF]

Are you just using BTCPay on the back end? The one image with a payment screen looks like it.
If not, what are you using? Is it off the shelf or custom coding? Open source or at least verifiable / reproducible code?

You say hardware wallet required, if so that means you have some way of knowing what the merchant is doing locally on their hardware so that might be a security concern.

-Dave

[we-btc]

DaveF, Thank you for the feedback!

Yes we are using BTCPay Server.  As you know all of the code is open source and we are not doing any additional coding which could create attack vectors.

We like the idea of requiring hardware wallets to keep a merchants funds as secure as possible.  There is an education process when it comes to the best way to transact with Bitcoin.  We are discussing the idea of allowing hot wallets but will not offer wallets that are local to our servers. It is important to us that we not store any private keys. We will simply provide access to the Bitcoin Blockchain in order for merchants to accept Bitcoin payments from their customers.

All accounts are secured by passwords and we recommend two factor authentication.  This keeps us from having access to a merchants transactions.

We will recommend to merchants who are savvy enough that hosting their own nodes would be the best option but our guess is that most merchants will not want to because of their lack of technical knowledge.

As you are aware the storage of a merchants private keys should be in a hardware wallet.

If you have a suggestion that could help make our service more secure please let us know.

Tom McPhail
We BTC

[Mbitr]

Are you a registered company ? Any details?
I always look for any company details when/if I’m dealing with any new service - particularly in the crypto sphere.
If you are not set up as a company - it’s definitely worth doing and definitely add these details.
I do like the website and idea though 

[Pmalek]

Very beautiful homepage of your site. Here are a few things I noticed.

• The hardware wallet section recommends Ledger Nano S as one of the hardware devices. The Nano S is no longer available to purchase on the official Ledger store and they have stopped with its production. Instead, you could add information about its successor - The Nano S Plus.
• Your website mentions that bitcoin settles in your wallet within minutes. That's not the whole picture. A transaction appears in your wallet immediately, that's true, but it's status is unconfirmed. Accepting unconfirmed transactions leaves a window open for double spending for example. Your clients might get the wrong idea that bitcoin transactions are instantly finalized.
• I am missing a "About" or "Team" section on your website. There is no mention of who is behind the site and what their experience and background looks like. Are you planning to stay anonymous?

[dkbit98]

If you could spend a few minutes to visit https://webtc.io and give us your feedback we would really appreciate it.

I would remove Ledger Nano S from the list of available hardware wallets because it's not produced anymore, and I would also add other open source options like Passport and Keystone hardware wallets.

It looks to me that Webtc is charging $30 per month for something that is already free to use and it's called BTCPay Server, so what's the advantage you are offering here?
Anyone can set this for free and if it's to complicated than there is more simple alternatives like cypherpunkpay.org or satsale.org.
However, I know people nowadays like everything to be one-click simple solution and you could some customers in future, but what happens if your website goes down?

[DaveF]

...We like the idea of requiring hardware wallets to keep a merchants funds as secure as possible....

But you didn't answer how you can require it. Unless I am mistaken there is no way of you knowing what I have on my side since all I should be giving you is extended public key and with that you spit out BTC addresses for people to pay. Now if you are talking them through the setup on their end, it's a different story. More along the lines of 'we will not support you if you do not use electrum and a hardware wallet'

It looks to me that Webtc is charging $30 per month for something that is already free to use and it's called BTCPay Server, so what's the advantage you are offering here?
Anyone can set this for free and if it's to complicated than there is more simple alternatives like cypherpunkpay.org or satsale.org.
However, I know people nowadays like everything to be one-click simple solution and you could some customers in future, but what happens if your website goes down?

Not saying good or bad and not putting words in his mouth but in order

1) A lot of places do charge for BTCpay, you can self host but if someone else is hosting on their hardware getting paid for it is not unreasonable. If they are talking you though the setup and giving some support $30 is not a lot.

2) cypherpunkpay needs a lightning node to connect to, satsale.org still requires you have a full node / lightning node too if you want that.

3) If their site goes down you find another place that is hosting public BTCPay server and import your extended public key and change the URL in your website to point to it.

-Dave

[seoincorporation]

I see in your site the is zero transaction fees, how you do this? who pay for the fees because the blockchain doesn't allow zero transaction fees and if they allow the transaction will just take too long to confirm.

The fact that i have to pay for your service and buy a hardware wallet to use it doesn't like me at all... i mean i can install free plugins in woocommerce to do the same what you are offering.

[we-btc]

Thank you for all of the great feedback and the questions are great.  What a great community!

Let me start with the Ledger Nano S.  Because the S has been discontinued we will remove the specific model and just list Ledger as the resource.

Requiring a hardware wallet - We originally thought we could require a hardware wallet but BTCPay Server still allows for the public keys from a hot wallet so for now we will have to allow that.  We will just work hard to educate merchants on this topic so they store their hard earned money in the best way possible.

Because we do not store private keys our customers always have complete control of their own money.  If we have a software problem, our servers go down or for any reason we cannot provide the service they expect they still have complete control of their wallet.

With regard to the speed of bitcoin transactions, when a merchant accepts credit card payments they usually wait at least 24 hours for the funds to be deposited if not 2 to 3 days.  Although bitcoin on average takes 10 minutes for a confirmation, even if it takes 4 hours it is still way faster than credit card transactions.  In the worst case it takes 24 hours and it is still faster then most credit card processors.

Anyone can host their own BTCPay Server and we encourage it.  Keeping bitcoin decentralized is extremely important to us.  We feel that the best solution would be for everyone who does a Bitcoin transaction to host their own node.  The issue is that most of the businesses we have talked to do not have the technical expertise, time or interest in hosting their own node even if it is free.  They just want to run their business and make it as easy as possible for their customers to pay. This is why we believe that $30 a month is amazingly cheap.  keep in mind they are paying 2.5% of their income to a bank currently

We feel that their is a huge percentage of the population who have no idea how easy bitcoin is to use.  Our goal is to market our services to businesses and remove the barriers to entry while maintaining the decentralized peer-to peer system that is bitcoin.  Businesses will promote the use of Bitcoin because it cost them nothing to accept it.  No more paying the 2.5% to the banks to run a business.

Who we are? I am a long time internet developer who started one of the first Ecommerce websites, Golf Circuit, back in 1994. I ran that for 22 years.  I worked for 18Birdies in San Francisco as VP of Business Development and then spent 3 years at Stanford University building web applications and doing system design and administration.  My Co-Founder Cathy Finn, Designed the database for the Human Genome project at Washington University after which she started her own Internet business, Pristine Planet.  Pristine Planet was a comparison shopping engine that catered to Eco-friendly, socially responsible businesses and products.  We have both been exploring crypto starting in 2016.  We will be adding this to the website as soon as time permits.  It is on the list. lol

We BTC is an LLC out of South Dakota.

We are going to attack this from every angle and are really excited to be working on something we both believe in.  There are so many ways that the mass adoption of Bitcoin can transform or culture.  

Thank you again for taking the time to review our site and please feel free to reach out at any time.

[we-btc]

seoincorporation,

We are offering our service to merchants.  Because merchants receive bitcoin they do not have to pay the fee.  The Bitcoin fee is paid by the payer or customer.

As a business, if you install a Woocommerce plugin and accept Bitcoin you will pay a fee to the provider.  I am not sure what it is but it will be between 1% and 3% on every transaction.

Thank for the question.

[SFR10]

our customers always have complete control of their own money.

I'm a bit confused as to why it's subscription-based and not just a one-time setup fee... How your customers are going to be affected if they choose to still use your gateway after canceling their subscriptions ^{[if the flow gets interrupted in any way, it'd invalidate the above line]}?

Can I issue refunds?

Yes! Just send the bitcoin back to the originating address. There is a button to initiate a refund on the original transaction.

If this implies the refund button only sends it back to the address that it came from, then IMO it's a design flaw ^{[especially in a situation where someone uses a centralized exchange to make those payments]}!

[we-btc]

SFR10, Good questions.

Our System (BTCPay Server) provides the merchant all of the functionality to accept Bitcoin payments on any platform including in a physical store(including an API for custom intigrations).  This means that a unique address is generated and a QR code is displayed so the customer can easily pay an invoice.  The merchant can then monitor the invoice with the chain explorer.  This allows them to easily track their bitcoin transactions and manage their bitcoin funds.  BTCPay Server has created an amazing system and We BTC is filling in the missing pieces: First is that merchants need to know that this option is available and we will spend our money to market it.  Second we are providing the support to make sure that any merchant can use the system easily.

I ran an Ecommerce business for 22 years.  If I could have paid $30 a month for this service I would have for 5 reasons:

1. I am giving customers who want to pay with Bitcoin the ability to buy from me. (new customers)
2. No transaction fees is a lot cheaper than the 2%  to 3% I have to pay to the credit card companies.
2. It is much cheaper to pay $30 a month than to setup and run a node myself.
3. I have complete control of my money and no bank is involved in my transactions.
4. I believe in Bitcoin as a better form of money than currently exists.

With regard to refunds: BTCPay Server has been well tested.  I don't believe this is an issue but I will pose the question to Nicholas at BTCPay Server and find out if there have been any issues with this functionality.

Tom McPhail
https://webtc.io

[dkbit98]

1) A lot of places do charge for BTCpay, you can self host but if someone else is hosting on their hardware getting paid for it is not unreasonable. If they are talking you though the setup and giving some support $30 is not a lot.

Sure, but if someone else is hosting it for you than you can expect much less privacy, and you never know if those information are being sold to some third party.
I am not saying $30 per month is a lot if you own a business that process lot of Bitcoins, but for average Joe with only few transactions it's not worth it.
Besides hosting node or lightning node is not rocket science, and you can even hire someone to help you with that, pay him one time fee and be in full control all the time.

Let me start with the Ledger Nano S.  Because the S has been discontinued we will remove the specific model and just list Ledger as the resource.

I don't understand how you would know what device I am using and why that is even important.
Can some DIY hardware wallets and signing devices like SeedSigner be used for this instead of Ledger.

[DaveF]

1) A lot of places do charge for BTCpay, you can self host but if someone else is hosting on their hardware getting paid for it is not unreasonable. If they are talking you though the setup and giving some support $30 is not a lot.

Sure, but if someone else is hosting it for you than you can expect much less privacy, and you never know if those information are being sold to some third party.
I am not saying $30 per month is a lot if you own a business that process lot of Bitcoins, but for average Joe with only few transactions it's not worth it.
Besides hosting node or lightning node is not rocket science, and you can even hire someone to help you with that, pay him one time fee and be in full control all the time.

But that comes back to the loop. If you are running a business that does take BTC online do you want to be responsible for keeping your node up 24/7? Power outages, cable outages and so on. Even if you are, then you are not going to want to run it on one of the $50 nodes but rather a bit newer more powerful machine and so there is that greater cost and then even if you hire someone cheap to help you set it up there is that cost. @ $360 a year you can easily hit 2 years before your 1st transaction.

As for privacy, if you are running something online and already doing transactions the minute amount of extra privacy leakage from having someone else host it is minimal.

As for the service I have been thinking ab bit and the biggest issue I really see is the $30 a month. For someone doing $1000 in BTC transactions a month there are places that will do it for 1.5% 2% so $15 to $20 and that is only if you transact. This is $30 every month even with a slow month.....

-Dave

[dkbit98]

But that comes back to the loop. If you are running a business that does take BTC online do you want to be responsible for keeping your node up 24/7? Power outages, cable outages and so on.

Same thing could happen to WeBTC and any other third party you use for hosting your node.
There are zero guarantees your node will be always online, and you can't do anything if it goes offline on their end.
If I have a business with my own hosted node, I can easily change location, cable and fix the problem.

Even if you are, then you are not going to want to run it on one of the $50 nodes but rather a bit newer more powerful machine and so there is that greater cost and then even if you hire someone cheap to help you set it up there is that cost.

You really don't know what machines they are using, and nowadays you can get used computer, laptop, Raspberry Pi and SSD to run your node easy peasy.

As for privacy, if you are running something online and already doing transactions the minute amount of extra privacy leakage from having someone else host it is minimal.

I wouldn't say it's minimal benefits, especially if I have no control over node.
Better read weBTC TOC and Privacy Policy pages:
https://webtc.io/terms-of-use.html
https://webtc.io/privacy-policy.html

[we-btc]

DaveF,

Thanks again for you comments. Your feedback is invaluable.

We have removed the Hardware wallet requirement and are testing the best hot wallets to recommend.

Do you have any preferences on hot wallets and which are the most secure, non-custodial options?

Thanks again for your feedback.

Tom McPhail
We BTC
https://webtc.io

[DaveF]

DaveF,

Thanks again for you comments. Your feedback is invaluable.

We have removed the Hardware wallet requirement and are testing the best hot wallets to recommend.

Do you have any preferences on hot wallets and which are the most secure, non-custodial options?

Thanks again for your feedback.

Tom McPhail
We BTC
https://webtc.io

I think Electrum is probably the best bet for a wallet. Windows / Linux / Mac / Android. Only one not covered by it is iOS based devices, but I would think for most businesses they are doing financial work on a desktop environment not phone / tablet. Could be wrong on that but I can't see someone spending money running and online store and taking crypto not having a desktop.

Would also put together a blog post about why you really should have a HW wallet and make sure people who are not using one understand that there is a greater risk of having funds lost / stolen.

-Dave

[we-btc]

DaveF

Thanks for suggesting the Electrum wallet.  Here is some of the information we have on our wallet page.

https://webtc.io/bitcoin-wallets.html

Please take a look at all of the links of this page and let me know if you have any suggestions.  Here is some of the information regarding bitcoin wallets:
------------------------

We BTC highly recommends a hardware (cold) wallet. Why?
Hardware Wallets provide secure self custody. The private keys are stored off-line on a device which means it is resistant to attacks. (See the table below to learn more).
By using a non custodial wallet (hot or cold), you are always in control of your funds, so even if our servers were hacked or taken offline, you still have complete control of your Bitcoin.
We BTC is not affiliated with, nor do we receive any compensation for the purchase, download or use of any wallet.

If you click on the Exodus wallet you will see the following information:

If you're new to crypto, the Exodus wallet is a good versatile beginner wallet and it offers cold storage integration with the Trezor Hardware Wallet. The XPUB key is easy to access so it can be attached to your store, and it is also available on mobile and desktop.

Any wallet that exports the XPUB key can be attached to your store, so please do your own research on which wallet features are important to you. These are a just a few of the other options.

Ledger (hardware + mobile & desktop)

Keystone (hardware)

Electrum (desktop)

ColdCard (hardware)

Specter Desktop (desktop)

Wasabi (desktop - very privacy centric)

-------------------

If you have any suggestions on how we can make the wallet page better please feel free to make any suggestions.

Tom McPhail
https://webtc.io