The Bitcoin Asia convention held on Might 9 and 10, 2024 in Hong Kong demonstrated a major milestone within the adoption of bitcoin as a reliable medium of trade.
This text outlines the methods and applied sciences carried out to facilitate seamless bitcoin transactions for items and companies over the 2 days, leveraging the capabilities of self-custodial fee processing via BTCPay Server.
Govt Abstract
All through the occasion, 212 Bitcoin transactions have been processed, involving 4 distributors and totaling 7,714,253 sats, equal to 36,974.63 HKD.
The common 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 don’t have any choice between self-custody or custodial fee processing.
For instance, for those who wished to run a self-custody enterprise with fiat, you would need to run a money payments-only enterprise, which comes with large threat of theft when centralizing capital in a single place. This could additionally restrict your buyer base.
To increase our financial outreach past our native economies, we created fee networks and fee processors that enable for digital transactions.
However what have been the implications of implementing custodial fee methods over time? Why can’t we now have a digital self-custodial fee processor? What improvements, freedoms, and information do prospects & companies need to sacrifice resulting from custodial fee processing? What if my digital type of fee (e.g., bank card, Apple Pay, Venmo) declines despite the fact that I’ve the funds in my account? What beneficial information — each monetary and private — am I now giving freely without cost due to these companies?
With BTCPay Server, we will facilitate the expertise of cash-like transactions digitally, which means we will make digital funds peer-to-peer. Transactions don’t require private data 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 utterly open supply, which means BTCPay Server will not be an organization — it is merely code.
BTCPay Server is a bitcoin fee processor that permits companies and people to obtain funds straight, with out counting on third-party companies.
Not like 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 methods with APIs, and each people and companies can tailor their fee processing expertise to fulfill particular wants, guaranteeing a seamless integration into their operational frameworks.
Along with the options listed above, BTCPay Server helps what are often called Prism Funds.
This performance permits for the trustless distribution of funds throughout a number of accounts on the level of sale. This modern method essentially rethinks the circulate of cash, enabling real-time compensation for stakeholders and staff.
Methods 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: Guaranteeing Liquidity and Value Stability
On the time of writing, the Lightning Community is the one Bitcoin scaling answer that maintains bitcoin’s cash-like properties in making funds with BTC.
The Lightning Community facilitates on the spot settlement, does not require any KYC and provides close to non-existent charges, very similar to the expertise of utilizing money.
For the Lightning Community to perform, it wants liquidity. Offering liquidity usually means operating and managing a node your self, however BTCPay Server does this for you.
On the convention, BTCPay Servers nodes, at the side of 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 worth hedging answer in case we skilled bitcoin worth volatility throughout the convention.
This threat wanted to be addressed as a result of distributors who accepted bitcoin on the convention wished 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, throughout the course of the convention, bitcoin’s worth might 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 might solely obtain $5 of their native foreign money, which is unacceptable.
To mitigate this threat, we used “stablesats”, a Blink function that permits for fast conversion into an artificial model of a steady foreign money (such because the Hong Kong greenback) on the level of sale.
Extra data on Blink options and companies right here.
Step 3: Deploying Bodily POS Machines
Regardless of the digital nature of bitcoin transactions, bodily point-of-sale (POS) machines have 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 easy NFC tapping at POS units.
Step 5: Coaching for Retailers and Workers
A coaching session was carried out earlier than the convention to familiarize distributors with how one can 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 easy operation of the fee system.
A full video of the coaching session is accessible right here.
Conclusion
Because of free and open supply software program like BTCPay Server and modern options from corporations 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 economic system.
