The Bitcoin Asia convention held on Might 9 and 10, 2024 in Hong Kong demonstrated a big milestone within the adoption of bitcoin as a reputable medium of alternate.
This text outlines the methods and applied sciences carried out to facilitate seamless bitcoin transactions for items and providers over the 2 days, leveraging the capabilities of self-custodial fee processing via BTCPay Server.
Government Abstract
All through the occasion, 212 Bitcoin transactions had 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 possibility between self-custody or custodial fee processing.
For instance, in case you needed to run a self-custody enterprise with fiat, you would need to run a money payments-only enterprise, which comes with large danger of theft when centralizing capital in a single place. This may additionally restrict your buyer base.
To broaden 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 programs over time? Why can’t we’ve got a digital self-custodial fee processor? What improvements, freedoms, and information do clients & companies must sacrifice as a consequence of custodial fee processing? What if my digital type of fee (e.g., bank card, Apple Pay, Venmo) declines regardless that I’ve the funds in my account? What helpful information — each monetary and private — am I now gifting away at no 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 just isn’t 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.
In contrast to 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 current programs with APIs, and each people and companies can tailor their fee processing expertise to satisfy 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 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 Value Stability
On the time of writing, the Lightning Community is the one Bitcoin scaling resolution that maintains bitcoin’s cash-like properties in making funds with BTC.
The Lightning Community facilitates instantaneous settlement, does not require any KYC and affords 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 with 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 value hedging resolution in case we skilled bitcoin value volatility in the course of the convention.
This danger wanted to be addressed as a result of distributors who accepted bitcoin on the convention needed to be paid out of their native foreign money as soon as the convention ended.
A bearish state of affairs for a vendor could be receiving a $10 fee bitcoin on the time of sale whereas the value of bitcoin was excessive, after which, in the course of the course of the convention, bitcoin’s value may have dropped 50%.
In one of these scenario, 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 danger, we used “stablesats”, a Blink function that permits for fast conversion into an artificial model of a secure 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 had been deployed to provide a well-recognized checkout expertise to attendees and distributors.
We used POS machines from Bitcoinize. These units 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 throughout the occasion. The playing cards allowed for simple NFC tapping at POS units.
Step 5: Coaching for Retailers and Staff
A coaching session was carried out earlier than the convention to familiarize distributors with methods to use BTCPay Server.
The ten-minute session was efficient, with minimal questions from individuals.
A gaggle chat was arrange for assist, which remained largely inactive as a result of clean operation of the fee system.
A full video of the coaching session is accessible right here.
Conclusion
Due to free and open supply software program like BTCPay Server and modern options from firms 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 on your subsequent occasion or inside your native financial system.
