I Opened another business were I accept Bitcoin

[Detritus]

POS (Point of sales) business is a major lucrative business in my region.
in my region, Bank ATMs is usually crowded with people trying to cash out or cash in (withdrawal/transfer). this become a challenge to most people who can not undergo the stress of joining a long que or having to wait under the sun, stand for long time or being patient until it's turn to carry out their transactions. in some cases bank is not close to some residential area and people living in the area would have to pay for transportation fee to get to a close by ATM and carry out their transactions, some times you get to the ATM and find out there is no cash (unable to dispense or out of service). Due to this reasons lots of people are now into POS business which is actively saving people Bank/ATM transaction stress.
the service offered by a POS business Agent is to save individuals the stress of going to the Bank/ATM to make cash withdrawal or send money to their loved ones, another stress it saves individuals is to help them pay for their cable subscribetions like (DSTV, Startimes) without having to drive down to the network providers office, they can also recharge airtime (VTU) to their desired network.
  Another thing it does is assist individuals pay for their electric bill, they need not go through the stress of going to the NEPA office before they can pay their bills.
 there are lots of people doing this Same business in my region but I did not find any one with the idea of accepting and exchanging Bitcoin and other crypto for their customers. So I decided to Open this same business with a different idea of accepting Bitcoin, i think am the first person with this move in the POS business.
I am happy I now have Two business in different areas that accepts Bitcoin. Thanks to the things I have learned in this forum about Bitcoin payment, I am being practical of things I learned in this forum.
  I just Opened the business on 1st/September/2022 and on the 2nd/Sep/2022 I was surprised to receive a call from my employee that a customer wants to take #18,000 (Nigeria Naira) and pay in Bitcoin, I did the calculation and added $3 fee for my business charge and sent the details across and the customer sent 0.00155 BTC. I asked my employee to give cash to the customer when she confirms the transaction is processing, so the customer initiated the transaction and receive the cash he needed.
It took over 35 minutes before the transaction was finally successful and arrived in my wallet. Due to the delay, I started thinking 🤔 its a scam but I was also convinced that it might be a congestion in the Bitcoin network.

 Apart from a short explanation I have given to my employees on how to receive payment in BTC from customers, I have decided I will organize a special class to teach all my employees things they need to know  in details About Bitcoin. The fact that I want to teach my employees things about Bitcoin and also accepting and exchanging Bitcoins for customers, do you think it's a risk am taking and should i discontinue the Business?

[BlockChainMentor]

This is a good business but the time taken for the transaction is more here due to network. If some day many customers come, then you may have a little problem.

[Lucius]

I asked my employee to give cash to the customer when she confirms the transaction is processing, so the customer initiated the transaction and receive the cash he needed.
It took over 35 minutes before the transaction was finally successful and arrived in my wallet. Due to the delay, I started thinking 🤔 its a scam but I was also convinced that it might be a congestion in the Bitcoin network.

You should be aware of how Bitcoin transactions work, and accordingly do not hand over money to the client until the transaction has received at least one confirmation on the network, or that your employees know to check whether the transaction has the RBF (Replace-By-Fee) label, which would mean that it is possible to double spend the same coins.

I would also advise my clients before the transaction which fee to use in relation to the current situation with mempool - which you can always see on this site -> https://mempool.space/

Apart from a short explanation I have given to my employees on how to receive payment in BTC from customers, I have decided I will organize a special class to teach all my employees things they need to know  in details About Bitcoin. The fact that I want to teach my employees things about Bitcoin and also accepting and exchanging Bitcoins for customers, do you think it's a risk am taking and should i discontinue the Business?

If the authorities in your country allow such a way of doing business, and if you know what you're doing, then you can make a profit - I would just invest in additional protection in the form of surveillance cameras or a protective barrier behind which your employees are when they work with clients.

[Pandu Geddon]

if in your country trading transactions using bitcoin are allowed, I think there will be no problem with your business. because usually, some countries regulate currency or means of payment that are legal and accepted in their country.

however, you have tried to make people around you more concerned about the value of Bitcoin. thank you for your effort and business.
My advice, you should do an evaluation every week or every month. related to your employee systems and services. I am sure this will not be short, it will take a long process.

[noorman0]

-snip-
do you think it's a risk am taking and should i discontinue the Business?

- Legal risk? Your country bans crypto. But it's an open secret that Nigeria is at the top of the bitcoin transaction statistics in Africa even though it's under ban. A risk that doesn't have to be thought about much, right?
- Crime risk. You as a physical cash exchange provider are assumed to have a large amount of cash reserves. This is feared to attract criminals to come to your shop.

If you think you can handle these 2 risk factors, you can continue your business.

[pawanjain]

While it is a decent way of earning a side income you must make sure who you are trading with.
Sometimes the other person is not genuine and might use bitcoins which were previously used for illicit activities hence putting you in trouble.
Some might also try to scam you by doing a replace by fee transaction and the solution to this is to at least wait for 2 confirmations to be on the safer side.
On the other hand you will need a good amount of liquidity in order to run this business which might become a problem when your business grows bigger.
Not to mention the legal regulations that you might encounter if you are from a country which restricts cryptocurrency trading.

[Pokapoka124]

The only legal risk here is that CBN do not tolerate bitcoin p2p transactions. Knowing how the POS business in Nigeria works, I don’t think it’s going to be a profitable venture. The major reason why customers patronize pos shops is for convenience and quick service compared to using ATMs. I believe your staff doesn’t have access to your wallet, only you do. So they have to contact you somehow to confirm the transaction. 35 minutes is a long time to spend trying to withdraw money at a POS centre. You could teach your staff how to use blockchain explorers to check the status of a transaction. Another thing you have to consider is the volatility of bitcoin, pos business is a small scale business, the capital is usually around 300-500$ I don’t think such business is ripe enough to adopt bitcoin yet.

[Franctoshi]

customer wants to take #18,000 (Nigeria Naira) and pay in Bitcoin, I did the calculation and added $3 fee for my business charge and sent the details across and the customer sent 0.00155 BTC.

Good idea!, but this people that will pay you in Bitcoin must be Big guys and Big men I guess, adding $3 as transaction fees to your customer in Nigeria is huge amount and might scare them away from doing business with you , I suggest you remove it as you are just getting started to attract more customers, then later you can add your charges. However, if you do have an account with any platform that has P2P like Binance for instance, though I'm not encouraging you should keep your cryptos in a centralized exchange, but in this case Binance P2P will make things easier for you, in terms of selling your Crypto back to Cash. therefore you need not to add $3 transaction fees to your customers because that is approximately (#2000) Nigeria Naira as at today's exchange rate of #700 -$1 dollar.

[taufik123]

There is nothing to stop if bitcoin transactions in your country are legal. What you do will certainly have a positive impact on how to trade with bitcoin. In addition to running this business, you also provide education to some of your employees. this is an added value that makes your business must continue to run.

In my country, this kind of business may soon be closed by the local government because it uses digital currency which is not allowed to replace fiat currency.

This business will run well and continue to grow if you also provide education to your customers, because there are customers who of course do not fully understand bitcoin.

[Pmalek]

Great initiative and good luck with the business.

Have you thought about automating the crypto part of your business in any way by using a crypto payment processor to take care of addresses and amounts? Judging by your explanation, all that was manually done. You generated an address, sent it to your colleague, they then gave it to the customer, the customer paid and waited over half an hour for the transaction to go through. Imagine having 10 people in quick succession who want to pay with BTC, you are going to have to give them each a separate address, check, and keep track of who has paid and how much.

Another potential problem is taxes. Are you in the system, do you pay taxes on the turnover you generate? 

[YOSHIE]

In my country, POS was often used as a cash register in stores, to make payments and transactions easier, as the times progressed with technology and the internet, it has entered remote areas with today's sophistication, Point of Sales (POS) has been used by ordinary entrepreneurs in payments in cash.

With the available features, as you said, yes indeed POS is feasible to be a business, especially payments, orders, product purchases for customers, without having to bother going far for example to banks, ATMs and so on, bottom line: if you take $3 in per transaction to a customer, that's a great and profitable business these days.

[Hyphen(-)]

It took over 35 minutes before the transaction was finally successful and arrived in my wallet. Due to the delay, I started thinking 🤔 its a scam but I was also convinced that it might be a congestion in the Bitcoin network.

Before handing over your FIAT currency to an unknown customer, always ensure that the transaction was successful. Trust is a very serious issue that we must be very cautious about. When you give out money (FIAT) before confirming the transaction, some people can double spend the Bitcoin and you will lose it all because you gave your FIAT out of trust. For more information, try studying how the memory pool works using the link provided by @Lucius.

do you think it's a risk am taking and should i discontinue the Business?

You have a very good innovation and idea to start this business as well as try to teach your employees more about Bitcoin and how Bitcoin transactions work; the only risk is that the Government of Nigeria has yet to legalize Bitcoin, so you are exposing yourself to risk; it is better you do it secretly for your own safety.

[kryptqnick]

POS is basically this terminal thingy that's often available at the supermarket if a person wants to pay by card, right? In my experience, it's something that it just available for payment by card wherever card payments are accepted. I assume it's different in Nigeria, as the op mentions people crowding around ATMs to get cash?
It's hard for me to understand what the POS business is normally about because to me POS is just a piece of hardware to which you can bring your card or smartphone to complete a transaction to pay for goods. Is it selling POS devices? Is it renting devices to merchants for a fee? Is it something else entirely?
Also, can a POS accept Bitcoin? Or is it accepting Bitcoin for the terminals themselves? I read the post, but it's difficult for me to make out the details because of how differently I probably perceive a POS.

[Davidvictorson]

In my opinion, this is neither good nor bad. If you say you just started the my candid advice to you is to manage the bitcoin transactions yourself until your staff has a firm grasp of it.  Secondly, I think it may be risky to operate this openly as regards the ban by the Central Bank on cryptocurrency businesses. Lastly, I am aware that the exchange rate differs as regarding the amount of Bitcoin needed. In other words, the exchange rate is greater for someone wishing to trade $100 worth of bitcoin than it is for someone wishing to swap $40. How would you approach this?

[uneng]

POS is basically this terminal thingy that's often available at the supermarket if a person wants to pay by card, right? In my experience, it's something that it just available for payment by card wherever card payments are accepted. I assume it's different in Nigeria, as the op mentions people crowding around ATMs to get cash?
It's hard for me to understand what the POS business is normally about because to me POS is just a piece of hardware to which you can bring your card or smartphone to complete a transaction to pay for goods. Is it selling POS devices? Is it renting devices to merchants for a fee? Is it something else entirely?
Also, can a POS accept Bitcoin? Or is it accepting Bitcoin for the terminals themselves? I read the post, but it's difficult for me to make out the details because of how differently I probably perceive a POS.

I'm also not familiar with this kind of service, because thanks to digital banking accounts which can be accessed on any smartphones every payments and transactions can be done virtually directly between seller and buyer without middlemen services included. I believe if people there had internet access and devices such as smartphones they could do these transactions by themselves, saving on fees. Or maybe middlemen services will keep existing to assist older generations making their payments, since they have some difficult or lack of interest for learning how to use technological devices in general.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

there are lots of people doing this Same business in my region but I did not find any one with the idea of accepting and exchanging Bitcoin and other crypto for their customers. So I decided to Open this same business with a different idea of accepting Bitcoin, i think am the first person with this move in the POS business.

Being a Nigerian myself and live in area where POS is a popular business among youths, I find it a bit difficult to believe you are the first person accepting bitcoin in a POS business, 98 percent of POS operators in Nigeria are youths, and more than 80 percent of this youths know a thing or two about bitcoin and crypto currencies, 60 percent of this people have bitcoin logo on their POS banner which means they accept bitcoin or will accept it upon request.

It took over 35 minutes before the transaction was finally successful and arrived in my wallet. Due to the delay, I started thinking 🤔 its a scam but I was also convinced that it might be a congestion in the Bitcoin network.

There are different modes of setting the miner fee and I think the customer deliberately set the miner fee low which is why the transaction took that amount of time to confirm, see the images below for a better understanding...




My advice is, next time you have a customer who want to send bitcoin to you and receive the cash equivalent, make sure the customer put the MINER FEE setting to priority, and if possible, politely make the customer to wait until the transaction receives atleast, one blockchain confirmation before they can leave.
I will personally suggest you type the above in a paper, print it out and paste it all over your POS shop, make it as a rule that customers transacting in bitcoin must set miner fee to priority and after sending bitcoin,. Must wait for 1 blockchain confirmation before they can take cash and leave.
This is to avoid or bring to the barest minimum, the chances of encountering a payment reversal where Bitcoin sent end up reversing back to the address it came from.

[stompix]

Due to this reasons lots of people are now into POS business which is actively saving people Bank/ATM transaction stress.
the service offered by a POS business Agent is to save individuals the stress of going to the Bank/ATM to make cash withdrawal or send money to their loved ones, another stress it saves individuals is to help them pay for their cable subscribetions like (DSTV, Startimes) without having to drive down to the network providers office, they can also recharge airtime (VTU) to their desired network.

Another thing it does is assist individuals pay for their electric bill, they need not go through the stress of going to the NEPA office before they can pay their bills.

Ok, apart from congratulating you on helping somebody spend his coins, I do have to say I feel like this whole POS thing as I see it and understand based on this article
https://techpoint.africa/2021/07/15/pos-business-in-nigeria
is like one huge step backward.

Basically, what every one of these operators is doing is acting like the exact fourth party between the customer and the service provider that needs to be paid, counting the third party as the bank that does the actual money transfer?

So rather than having a simple bank app from which you can pay your bills with a tap directly from your bank account you go to the POS shop, you hand this guy the bill, you pay him an extra 2-3 maybe 5% and he pays the bill for you? Am I right?

[Detritus]

POS is basically this terminal thingy that's often available at the supermarket if a person wants to pay by card, right? In my experience, it's something that it just available for payment by card wherever card payments are accepted. I assume it's different in Nigeria, as the op mentions people crowding around ATMs to get cash?
It's hard for me to understand what the POS business is normally about because to me POS is just a piece of hardware to which you can bring your card or smartphone to complete a transaction to pay for goods. Is it selling POS devices? Is it renting devices to merchants for a fee? Is it something else entirely?

Yes, POS is a point of sale used in the supermarket, it's also used in the supermarket in my country but it saves more like an ATM in my country because of how the bank ATM is usually crowded, some youths like us has turned POS into a business were customers comes to your shop and Carry out any transaction with their debit card.
  For example; some one can come to my shop and ask to withdraw cash, all I need to do is slot in his card into my POS marching, type-in the amount he/she wishes to withdraw, they put their pin and Money will go from their account to my account then I will give them the cash they need.  (POS business in Nigeria is just like performing a manual process of an ATM).

Also, can a POS accept Bitcoin? Or is it accepting Bitcoin for the terminals themselves? I read the post, but it's difficult for me to make out the details because of how differently I probably perceive a POS.

POS does not accept Bitcoin, but some one can decide to receive Bitcoin from customers and give them cash
Equivalent to the Bitcoin they sent. Let me assume you came to my shop and you need cash but you want to send
me Bitcoin and receive cash equivalent to the Bitcoin you sent.

[livingfree]

Well, congratulations if this is another business that you've come up with that's related to bitcoin and you're not just talking it with words but you're actually applying it.

You are a legitimate entrepreneur as you are solving problems that you see within your community. It's going to be accompanied by fees and that's already part and given with we know how the bitcoin atm works. So, with this POS business you started, I guess you'll discover many things, the ins and outs of it.

Good luck!

[rby]

Congratulations for your business idea and including bitcoin in your business. It has helped you to have a very good feel about Bitcoin transactions. When you said that you were afraid if it was a scam. That is not how bitcoin transactions work, you don't have to hand out cash unless the person sends you the transaction ID and you go into blockchain and confirm truly that the transaction is in queue and atleast a block has been confirmed before you can handout cash. More careful next time.