At the end of 2019, we look back at all that has happened in the past decade. We have seen many revolutions across the world, but one of the biggest could just be the bitcoin revolution. Bitcoin has brought new technology to the world, the blockchain technology that has disrupted many industries. It slowly found its way into many industries all across the board, but the financial sector has not been affected too much, yet.

In some countries though, there is a lot of demand for cryptocurrencies as a whole. Countries like Venezuela, Argentina and Turkey saw their national currency decrease in value, making lots of people switch to cryptocurrencies. With more and more people using cryptocurrency as a new form of investing, it’s also a new form of making payments. As bitcoin is a creation of the internet, the dominant place it’s being used to perform payments is the internet. Today, we’d like to invite you to have a look at the benefits of accepting cryptocurrency in your (online) store.

Low transaction fees

In this world, nothing is free. Accepting payments is one of the services that service providers love to charge fees over. Traditional banking systems charge merchants a fee for every single transaction that is being performed, this is similar to the blockchain network. However, the fees are substantially lower when accepting cryptocurrencies. In general, for every $100 you spend (or receive), $4 dollar goes to the credit card companies. This is drastically higher than the fees associated with services like NOWPayments that charges no fees besides the fees for using the blockchain network. It’s a way to make sure you as a merchant, get the biggest piece of the pie, not your credit card provider.

Borderless transactions

Have you ever tried sending money to a different country with the use of a regular bank? This could take days, sometimes even weeks before the actual transaction occurs. Besides the time it takes, there are high fees attached to these services as well. Sometimes you could be paying up to $40 for simply accepting a payment to a friend in another country. With cryptocurrency, it doesn’t matter where the person is in the world. When you have an online store that ships worldwide, it’s a must to start accepting cryptocurrencies. 

No chargebacks

In the economy that we have today, there are dozens of people that are ordering products online. A group of these people receives the packages, use them for a couple of days to then send it back to the merchant within the given period. The store then has to pay back the customer as a form of a chargeback. It could be considered a one-way scam as merchants have nothing to do against these kinds of customers. When accepting cryptocurrency, however, these transactions can not be altered. When confirmed on the blockchain, a transaction can not be undone. In order for the customer to start receiving their money back, they would have to provide the proper evidence first. 

No third parties

When you are dealing with payment providers, you are always dealing with a third party. This could be Visa, Mastercard or whatever service you are using in your store. Anyhow, these services require some data from your users and they take a piece of the pie. In case of any emergency, the third party could even seize your money, as we have previously seen in drastic situations. Do you remember what happened during the 2008 crisis in Cyprus? Many people could not access their money because the bank that had stored it collapsed. To prevent this, you can start accepting cryptocurrencies. All the money that you receive lands directly in your personal wallet, that only you can access. A service like NOWPayment will only facilitate the process, it does not have access to the money at any moment throughout this process. 

Optimized privacy

Do you hate having to deal with dozens of service providers that want to know every single detail of you as a person? Right, we understand. Due to regulatory issues, many of these traditions payment parties wish to have all your data and verification that you could think of. They have a reason to ask you this because if they do not, they are in a battle with the law. The lucky part of cryptocurrencies is, there are not that many laws at this point. When accepting cryptocurrencies, you do not have to share much more than your email address and your cryptocurrency wallet. Some payment processors require a shipping address and a full name, but NOWPayments only wish to have an email account and a wallet address. We want our users to enjoy their privacy, enough with giving up your sensitive data.

Staying ahead of your competitors

As a store operator, your competitors are always breathing in your neck. You always want to be one step ahead of them and have all the customers come your way. To do so, you should always be on top of all the current and upcoming trends. As we have seen before, customers can simply choose a store based on the fact that they accept PayPal for example. In the future, customers will choose their online store based on the option to pay with cryptocurrency. Don’t wait until it’s too late, you better act now before your competitors beat you to it.

As you can see, there are many benefits to start accepting cryptocurrencies. We did not even mention the fact that your accepted cryptocurrencies could increase in value over time, that’s a little bonus you will experience along the way. Anyhow, it’s not too late. When you have an online store, start accepting cryptocurrencies today with NOWPayments and stay ahead of your competitors.

Anyone that is familiar with marketing has probably heard of loyalty programs. Nowadays every single supermarket, shopping mall, football club or whatever kind of commercial outlet you’d find has a program to create a bond with their customers. These come in many forms from receiving cashback to saving points that you can later spend on cash credit. Whatever it is, they are being used as a form of marketing in order to make sure you, as a customer, come back to the store as often as possible. One topic we love talking about here at NOWPayments is cryptocurrency, not that weird since we’re a cryptocurrency payment provider. Today we’re combining both cryptocurrencies and loyalty programs to see what sorts of programs currently exist and how you can benefit from them.

Cashback

One of the popular forms of loyalty programs is the cashback feature. It’s pretty simple, you spend money and you get a little cashback. In this case, you spend regular dollars/euros or other fiat currency and get a little cryptocurrency back. It totally depends on the company that’s offering the solution if it’s FIAT based or you’d have to spend cryptocurrency in order to earn cryptocurrency, but it’s generating you money while you spend money. This is a really simple form of earning some extra money for the purchases you were making anyway. It’s a form that drives up the incentive for people to utilize cryptocurrency for more than simply holding the coin, but actually spending their currency. There are various projects that offer this solution, however, there are two companies we’d like to highlight.

Lolli

This is a company that made it really simple for people to earn cryptocurrency, in particular, Bitcoin. You simply go to their website, add a plug-in to your browser and off you go. They have partnered up with more than 500 online stores that allow you to spend your money using FIAT currencies, but you get a percentage of that back in Bitcoin. Are you planning to do your holidays shopping online? Then it might be the perfect timing to install the Lolli extension to start earning a little extra back in Bitcoin. That little extra might just be worth a whole lot more in the future. 

Crypto.com

This project took it to the next level with its loyalty program. This is not focused solely on Bitcoin, rather on their own coin, MCO. They offer a credit card that can be used in physical stores and online stores across the whole wide world as it’s a VISA card that’s generally accepted everywhere you go. This card comes in different tiers depending on how much MCO you put at stake. There is one card that’s free, this earns you 1% MCO cashback on all your purchases. Now after these free cards, there are several tiers that include a metal card. The highest tier earns you 5% cashback in MCO plus a free subscription to Netflix, Spotify and a 10% rebate on both Expedia and Airbnb. That’s a whole lot of benefits for using this card. The catch here is, you’d have to stake 50,000 MCO which is currently valued at over 200,000 US dollars. In that perspective, it’s quite expensive actually. 

Travala

Another niche that is being filled is the travel industry. Travala transformed from a simple ICO into an actual company that is now leading the way for blockchain-based traveling. They offer 2,000,000+ properties across 90,124 destinations in over 200 countries, ranging from luxurious five-star hotels to hidden gems.  The beauty is, the prices are up to 40% cheaper than mainstream travel booking platforms. If you manage to find a price that is cheaper at one of Travala’s competitors, you can send the evidence and get paid the difference in AVA tokens. Traveling at its finest. 

Tokenized Coupons

Remember the coupons? Or have you seen the TV-show where these people stack up hundreds of different coupons to then go on and bring truckloads of stuff into their homes without spending a single dollar? That’s what happens with coupons. The problem was storing these coupons safely until you had the right amount to get the benefits of your liking. The moment you tokenize these coupons and put it on the blockchain, you can simply keep them digitally. All you do is simply link your account to you as a person and now you can start stacking coupons in your mobile application. There are several companies offering this solution with more and more companies worldwide acknowledging the benefit of these digital tokens. You’ll never lose your coupons anymore and they are immediately verified with the use of Blockchain technology. Win-win on both ends.

Affiliate Programs

It might be questionable whether this is considered a loyalty program but in some way it is. What it does, it brings you to a certain level of dedication to a platform that you’d tell your friends, family and following about the platform of your liking. With a rich industry like the cryptocurrency industry where most exchanges are swimming in money, these affiliate services are no surprise. Each exchange has its own conditions from cutting trading fees to earning a little percentage of its profits. Whatever it is, it simply pays you to have friends. There are lots of lists going around with the most profitable affiliate schemes, but most of these include having friends that trade cryptocurrency. Having traders as friends is something that’s not as common as having friends that spend cash online. Introducing, the NOWPayments affiliate program.

NOWPayments provides people the opportunity to spend their cryptocurrencies in online stores. In this day and age, every single person on the planet has probably heard of the option to buy things online. Around 80% of these people probably regularly buy things online and a couple of percent of these people do so by using cryptocurrency. Given the fast rise in online stores and increasing demand for cryptocurrency payments, NOWPayments is actively looking for new merchants to start accepting cryptocurrency. The moment you have a friend, family member or vague relative that has an online store, you should tell this person about NOWPayments. With our incredibly easy to integrate payment solution, you’ll start accepting cryptocurrencies within no-time. 

What does this bring to the person who referred your friend to NOWPayments? You receive $25 dollars in NOW Tokens plus an extra 0,2% of each payment that’s being processed through NOWPayments on the website you referred. There are 20 of these rewards for a single person, that could make up for $500 dollars in total simply for telling people to start accepting cryptocurrencies. Sounds like a good deal, right?

With new revolutionary technologies like Bitcoin coming our way, we see money around several industries. We first saw Bitcoin being crowned as the new gold, it being the best returning asset with a limited supply. However, as a form of payment, Bitcoin can be extremely convenient for many companies out there. With more and more companies being solely online and not using any physical stores, a check-out time that’s longer than a minute is not the worst problem. In physical stores, you’d want to go as fast as possible and the struggle of having to scan a QR-code or whatever can take too much time. Online, however, that’s not too big of an issue as the stores will only process your payment whenever the transaction has been made. 

Even so, Bitcoin does not charge you any fees for payment crossing country borders, just the transaction fees for utilizing the network. There are many benefits to accept Bitcoin, or any cryptocurrency, as a form of payment. The downside that’s undeniable is the volatility in regards to the price. Any day the price can go up, down, sideways, whatever the biggest bag holders feel like. That’s the uncertainty not every single company can deal with, even though it could eventually work in their benefit. Nevertheless, there are quite some big names across the world that have decided to do accept cryptocurrencies. 

5. Wikipedia

One of the advocacies for a free internet that provides anyone across the world with information is Wikipedia. It is and has been one of the most popular websites in the world for a long time now that plays an essential part of the internet. As many people know, the project is solely funded by the community as there is no business model behind it. In order for the website to accept donations, Bitcoin can be used as means of payment. A decentralized way of supporting a great cause, both Bitcoin and Wikipedia are decentralizing access to information.

4. Microsoft

When thinking of big tech companies, Microsoft might be one of the first to pop in your mind. Now, they do not allow you to spend Bitcoin to purchase any of their software, but one brand that’s been operating under the Microsoft hood does. As early as 2014, users have the ability to purchase goods through the Xbox store. With a short break of accepting the service caused by the big volatility, Xbox is now again allowing users to purchase goods with Bitcoin. It’s not as easy as simply pressing the Bitcoin button when checking out your shopping cart, but the first step is there. 

3. Expedia

As one of the leading travel websites alongside big names as Booking, Expedia is your place to look for flights, hotels and car rentals anywhere in the world. The company, which is basically a giant index of thousands of hotels and anything travel-related, started accepting Bitcoin as early as 2014. Back then, they have integrated a payment solution to start accepting payments to be made in Bitcoin. Whether in the future they remain to be associated with a single payment solutions or prefer a more customized solution, that’s unclear. Expedia is, however, a website that’s being visited by thousands, if not millions, of people every single day. 

2. Overstock

One of the largest retail companies in the world, Overstock, has been welcoming Bitcoin in its line of payment options for several years now. They too have partnered up with a payment solution in order to accept Bitcoin. The fun part here is, most of their users have probably never heard of Bitcoin. That’s a positive thing as this means all these people simply see the logo of Bitcoin whenever they check-out in the Overstock store. A notable piece of information shared by the Overstock CEO is the fact that the company chose to keep 5-10% of the paid Bitcoin as a company reserve. Imagine how many Bitcoin they are sitting on to keep for the price to arrive at higher highs, that’s certainly going to drive up the price.

1. Virgin Galactic

Ever heard about Virgin? The huge empire of companies that Richard Branson built. One of the companies within their line of different ventures is Virgin Galactic. It’s a company that’s supposed to make space flights commercially available to anyone interested. Back in 2013, Branson already discovered Bitcoin was there to stay and publicly announced his Galactic company would now accept Bitcoin as means of payment. These flights have not taken place yet, but the pre-orders have steadily been going on for a long time. Let’s hope no one has put their precious Bitcoins in back in 2013, that would’ve been a bad investment in comparison to the current value. A trip to space will cost around $250,000, which can be paid entirely in Bitcoin if you’d like!

The manner of accepting cryptocurrencies is varying from every single company. Some chose the more ‘traditional’ way by just partnering up with the oldest cryptocurrency companies out there, where others chose the alternatives. Coinbase, like many other major companies is one of the big brands out there that might seem trusted, but in fact they do charge big fees in return. This will provide you with a certain trust that your funds will be properly and securely stored. Nevertheless, with some proper security measures, you can safely manage your own funds.

The moment you do, there’s a ton of alternatives to the high-fees of companies like Coinbase. One to name is NOWPayments. We strive to provide the merchant with as much of the amount paid by the shopper as possible. We do not take any cuts of the pie, your money should be your money. With NOWPayments, you give us your address, you integrate our system and your customers will directly pay to your wallet. We’re not here to play the middleman, that wouldn’t be fair when working with technologies that function as a way of cutting out the middleman.

We’ve taken a look at some of the biggest companies out there that are accepting Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, but there are many more. In fact, there are tons of websites and blogs listing many smaller companies that accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment. We’ve seen it having a major impact in countries like Argentina and Venezuela, but even in the more developed countries it’s slowly catching on. Where back in the day one man paid 10,000 Bitcoin for a pizza, we might just see people paying as little as 100 satoshis for a cup of coffee. Have a look for yourself at the map listing all merchants around the world to accept cryptocurrency, see which local store can accept your crypto!

What is QTUM?

Qtum is a Chinese hybrid platform that connects existing blockchains. Qtum is built on Bitcoin’s UTXO transaction model, with the added functionality of smart contract execution. It is a platform that allows developers to create applications and smart contracts based on current blockchain technology.

Focusing on creating a platform that helps companies create smart contracts on the blockchain, Qtum is a toolkit in the first place. Designed to be both robust and modular, the platform can create small contracts that will be used on most major blockchains. The goal of the platform is to change the way you store application databases. Instead of a centralized method of storing the database on one server, applications running on the Qtum platform will be stored in the database as transactions on a blockchain.

Qtum is a cryptocurrency that combines Ethereum’s smart contract functionality with bitcoin’s security to create a coin that is suitable for adoption by large organizations. That’s why many people believe in it and become QTUM holders! 

We at NOWPayments wanе to provide our users with as many unique, promising coins as possible. So here we present Qtum, who is becoming a more and more powerful platform, start accepting it now!

NOWPayments is a top crypto payment gateway service that is always working towards supporting as many coins as possible while providing high speed without any hidden fees!

Apart from that, NOWPayments have the following advantages:

• The instant auto conversion of your funds: no risk of losing funds to market price fluctuations!
• The widest among the competitors’ list of supported coins.
• An easy to deploy API with an in-depth manual.
• Custody-free service with no hidden fees.
• Support agents are available 24/7.

In our capitalist world, most of us people live by the saying ‘Money makes the world go round’. It’s true in most cases, as money does make sure that you can purchase the products or services that you want. It can make you happy in the sense that it provides you with the freedom of doing whatever you want, but it can never replace the happiness non-material stuff brings you. There are some people that have generated so much wealth over the years they now dedicate their lives to spending their money, instead of generating more. 

That’s where charity comes in. We as human beings have a sense of caring for each other and feel the need to look out for one another. Whether that’s your own family, your friends or a person on the other side of the world, everyone wants to do good in some way. In the western world, most countries are developed enough that the basic needs are covered for the majority of the population. This coverage is a different story in many countries in other regions of the world. In order to balance this, western countries have started companies that have no goal to make a profit.

All they do is use their capabilities to help people in need. The irony however is, there are many people profiting from these non-profit organizations. There’s a ton of people that became rich from working with charities and many companies grew substantially over the backs of those in need. Another reason Blockchain technology is calling for its entrance in yet another industry. We’ll zoom in on the benefits of accepting cryptocurrency as an option for donations later in the article, first and foremost; A top 5 charities that are currently accepting cryptocurrency as means of donation.

5. The Water Project

One company that’s currently accepting donations in the form of a variety of cryptocurrencies is the Water Project. It’s providing clean water to people in the Sub-Saharan region in Africa. The prices vary of course due to the volatility of Bitcoin, but a couple of months ago these statistics were shared;

• Water and Sanitation for a School/Large Community: 3.2034 BTC
• Small Community Water Project: 1.6017 BTC
• Clean, Safe Water for a Family: 0.0224 BTC
• Clean, Safe Water for 1 Person(s): 0.0045 BTC

These are real simple and plain examples of what you could be doing whenever you find yourself in the position of holding more cryptocurrency than you’d be needing yourself. The project accepts Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin. One aspect of the technology that has been embraced by the project is the transparency part. With their application, they provide donators the access to the entire journey their funds take from their wallet to actual implementation. 

4. Red Cross

One of the biggest and most active non-profit organizations the world has ever known is the Red Cross. Anywhere in the world, there’s an excessive need for medical assistance, the Red Cross team takes the road and gets down to work. Their services reach from providing blood to those in need, emergency assistance after disasters and training of local caretakers to be able to handle situations as first responders. Now, the promotion of cryptocurrency is not done by these organisations but with a little search, you’ll get to the page where you’re able to donate using cryptocurrency. They accept Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum.

3. Save The Children

Another huge organisation, Save The Children has realized the benefits of accepting cryptocurrency. As the name of the organization suggests, they are focused on children. Especially, the health and education of children in need of extra assistance. They have projects all across the globe varying from the US, Africa, Asia to the Greater Middle East and Latin America. Wherever there are children in a tough situation, that do not get the chance to experience a proper childhood, Save The Children comes in. Similar to the Red Cross, Save the Children does not actively promote the donation by means of cryptocurrency. Here you have to go the extra mile, but a simple little google search does the trick and gets you to the donation page. You can donate using Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum.

2. Unicef

This organization, the United Nations Children’s organization is stepping it up a notch. Whereas other non-profit organizations are simply accepting cryptocurrency as a form of donations, Unicef has created a so-called ‘Cryptocurrency fund’. This means that UNICEF is now able to receive, hold and disburse donations in the form of cryptocurrency. They have chosen to work with only Ethereum and Bitcoin as the chosen currencies. The funds generated with the help of cryptocurrencies are used to fund their open source technology created to benefit children and young people around the world. 

The first donation that was made was done by The Ethereum Foundation, the organization behind the creation of the Ethereum project. UNICEF is working with Blockchain technology more frequently these days. The launch of the UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund is part of UNICEF’s ongoing work with blockchain technology. It’s exciting to think of all the other possibilities blockchain technology could have for the organization. 

1. Fidelity Charitable

Are you excited about sharing some of your wealth with those in need but can’t really make up your mind on which non-profit organization you should choose? Fidelity Charitable has found a solution to this problem. They have created a solution that makes sure that donations in cryptocurrency are done in the most efficient way. There are three steps;

• First, you create your Giving Account and fund it with the amount of money you would like to donate
• Secondly, you decide which charities you would like to support
• The donation process commences and your donations will flow to your preferred charities. Given the fact that the price is volatile, your donations might even grow at the end.

The key aspect of Fidelity Charitable, plus what they use to attract people of using their service is the tax benefits. Whenever you cash out, in The United States at least, your cryptocurrency gains, you should pay a percentage of the total amount in taxes. These are funds that could be used in order to support causes around the world. Whenever you donate using cryptocurrency, you simply transfer your money from one account to the other, not having to deal with any taxes. This has led Fidelity Charitable to grant more than 5.7 billion US Dollars in 2019 alone to charity. 

One key takeaway from this article is the ease and importance of accepting cryptocurrency as a donation option. We, NOWPayments, have created a really simple way of accepting cryptocurrency within your payment options. We provide payment plans for online stores, but we have created a donation button to support causes like the above. We do not like charging fees for these services, so we promise that as much of the donated funds end up at the charity you’d like to support. Do you find yourself working for a charitable organization, are you supporting a non-profit for years and would you like to see them accepting cryptocurrency? Reach out to us and see how we could help these organizations.

What Is WaBi?

The WaBi project was developed by Walimai Chinese experts in the field of protecting products from counterfeit and fakes. The initial priority is placed on baby food, alcohol and medicine, but in the future, the platform has the potential to be used in the protection of many categories of goods.

Tael (WaBi) is described as a token used in the Tael ecosystem of consumer products. The goods inside are secured from counterfeit attempts through banking-level, tamper-proof NFC smart-labels, which are connected to digital representations on the blockchain. Consumers interact with labels using their smartphones to verify a product’s authenticity and see the product’s journey. Users and are rewarded for their purchases with the Tael token (WaBi). 

Analysts positively evaluate WaBi’s concept – it has significant potential for development and widespread use. The platform does not focus on solving global problems and providing common tools – it sets clear goals in the field that is in demand for users.

NOWPayments is glad to support such a promising project! We are a top crypto payment gateway service that is always working towards supporting as many coins as possible while providing high speed without any hidden fees!

Apart from that, NOWPayments have the following advantages:

• The instant auto conversion of your funds: no risk of losing funds to market price fluctuations!
• The widest among the competitors’ list of supported coins.
• An easy to deploy API with an in-depth manual.
• Custody-free service with no hidden fees.
• Support agents are available 24/7.

A thing we take for granted nowadays is the ease of payment within online stores. It makes sense that the party on the other side, the store, makes it as easy as possible for people to make a payment. Back in the day, this wasn’t as easy as it was before. It took days for the money to arrive within the same country, let alone whenever you made a payment to a bank account on the other side of the world. These days, there are tons of online banks, companies that solely exist on the cloud and a new phenomenon; cryptocurrency. The virtual currencies cross any border, cut out every middleman out there and simply make it possible for anyone to transact with anyone. A true revolutionary technology that is changing the way we see our old system. 

One industry that has changed because of the invention of cryptocurrencies is the payment industry. Back in the day, you had to write a check that got filed at the bank and it was processed by hand by an employee of the bank. This system got replaced by mobile applications and such, but the crossing of borders remains a difficult part of the process. Within the e-commerce world, payment should be as easy as possible. Put e-commerce and cryptocurrency together and you get NOWPayments, the solution for anyone that’s trying to accept virtual assets all over the world. Now, you might be wondering why NOWPayments would be a better option than the other services that offer crypto payments. That’s a fair question, let’s see where NOWPayments differs and helps you save in comparison to other services out there. 

Transaction fees

Paying money just for paying money, that sounds weird, right? See the payment process as a big piece of cake that has to be brought from one place to another. Along the way, each person it passes wants to have a little piece of that cake. For traditional companies, these are the hosting partners, security measures, employees, etc. For cryptocurrency payments, these are the validators of the network.

In order to verify a transaction, miners are in place to make sure these transactions are valid. The fees can be really tiny in comparison to traditional companies like Paypal for example. When accepting cryptocurrency payments, you might be wondering where the fees that you pay your partner end up. Usually, it is a part of the fees for using an exchange whenever the paid currency requires to be exchanged. NOWPayments has found a way around this system. We’ll map it out with a short example; 

Imagine you are running an online store that sells Crypto Merchandise. You are properly running and each month you bring in around $3000 in revenue. That’s $3000 that’s being processed by payment providers. In your case, all your payments that you receive are being made in cryptocurrency as that’s the only thing you accept. Let’s say you receive 50 percent of your total revenue in bitcoin, the rest is in other currencies.

The average commission for receiving crypto payments is 1%, so you pay 30$ monthly to accept all of your cryptocurrency, no matter which currency you accept. With NOWPayments you can set a payout wallet in BTC, as that’s what you’d like to accept. Now, each payment done in BTC is not charged by any commission. In your case, you save at least $15 dollars a month by simply accepting BTC with the use of NOWPayments. The main reason for this is because NOWPayments does not charge any fees besides the exchange fees. 

The best rates offered by NOWPayments

So you save some money by accepting Bitcoin straight away into your wallet, that’s a bonus. Another thing that should be noted when comparing cryptocurrency payment providers is the overall transaction fee. NOWPayments is aiming to always give the merchant as much of the paid amount as possible. In most cases, the fees charged are near to zero. This can be best described with the following example; 

“Let’s say your customer would like to make a $20 purchase. They would like to pay you in ETH, while you’re accepting your funds into a BTC wallet. The ETH to USD rate is $171 per 1 ETH. Therefore, the customer would pay 0.11695906 ETH, while you would get 0.0031984 BTC with all the exchange and processing fees, as well as a network fee for the instant fund transfer to your wallet, already subtracted.”
All the rates are as of 04/11/2019. The rates as of now may drastically differ.

Money is not the only thing you can save with NOWPayments.

With NOWPayments we aim to make life as easy for the merchant as possible. In the examples described above, there’s a clear description of how you can save some money by using NOWPayments as a service to start accepting cryptocurrency payments. Now, we like to do more than just that. We have a really easy and smooth integration process. We offer a variety of options on how you could start accepting cryptocurrencies into your online store, SaaS or whatever you’d like to sell online. There are options to use our API, a WooCommerce plugin or the option to add a donation button on your websites. This saves you all the struggle, the time and sweat of having to deal with complicated systems. 

One thing that can take loads of your time is dealing with issues within the payment process. We do not like our customers to deal with any problems, that’s why we have a customer service department that’s available 24/7. No matter what timezone you’re in, we are there for you to help you out with any kind of issue you run into. Saving you headaches, worrying time and any inconvenience for your customers. 

We are ready for you and your store, what are you waiting for?

We have all ordered something online before. Some do it more often than others and some are operating their own websites. For those who can remember, back in the day, E-Commerce was something new. It was not as common to be able to use any kind of payment mechanism to spend your beloved currencies on a product you want to buy. Nowadays though, this is possible. There are dozens of different payment methods ranging from Credit cards to Apple Pay to WePay to Paypal. A new player in town is cryptocurrency, a new type of currency that can not be processed through the traditional payment methods. 

One of the requirements of being able to process cryptocurrency payments is integration with modern-day web stores, the ability to process the payments and the ability to keep it fair for the person accepting the currency. Some of you might know how much of the transaction fees PayPal is charging, this is something crucial when it comes to cryptocurrency transactions. The traditional payment processors are battling for the dominant position within the market, and it’s no different in the land of cryptocurrency. One of the best services out there is NOWPayments, we’ve discovered multiple reasons why in a previous blog post. Today, we’ll shine a light on how to integrate NOWPayments into your service.

API

The easiest way of integrating the NOWPayments solution into any website out there is by using our API. It’s an easy and efficient way of adding our payment processing mechanism that even allows you to tweak a little here and there. The steps are simple;

1. Create an account on the NOWPayments account page;
2. Activate your account via the email that we have sent you;
3. Sign-in into your account and open the Dashboard Page;
4. Go to the ‘Store settings tab’ and press “Add a new key”; 
5. You will get an API key. Save it somewhere safe;
6. Create a wallet for the currencies you want to accept;
7. Go to the “Outcome wallet” section in the “Store settings” page;
8. Add the wallet address for the currencies you want to accept
9. Start using our solution and enjoy!

This might seem simpler than it is in reality, so in order to support these claims of how easy it is, please check the full documentation.

WooCommerce Plug-In

About one-third of all websites and a big chunk of the web stores run on WordPress. In addition to a wordpress site that enables you to run your website is WooCommerce. There are more than 750,000 stores worldwide that are hosted using WooCommerce, so an easily integrated solution for this had to be created. All you have to do for the NOW Payments’ WooCommerce Plugin is sign up on our website and get an API key. After that, you can just grab the source code of the plugin, copy and paste it on your website and there you have it. All that is left is creating yourself an IPN Secret key within your account page. This should be added to your WooCommerce account as well in order to receive updates about all the transactions. From now on, you can safely accept cryptocurrencies, track all the made transactions and enjoy zero-fees!

Donation Widget

Once you have set up your account on our website and you have played around a little with the API Keys, you are a little familiar with the way we operate. It’s no extremely complicated, we aim at making it as easy to use for any party involved. Another feature that we have created is the ‘Donation Widget’ with the ‘Donation Button’. It’s a feature that allows you to accept cryptocurrencies as a form of donation. All it takes is our easily integrated API based on your preferred currency and the store selected. This will bring you a piece of source code that you can add to your website, now you can accept crypto donations!

The best part about this service is the fact that there are no hidden fees. Where many of the crowdfunding or donation platforms take a huge chunk of your donation with the reasoning of ‘transaction fees’ or whatsoever, doing it through the NOWPayments’ solution will deliver all of your wired funds to the recipient. The donator, on the other hand, can now track what’s happening to his/her money as well, transparency! We are ready to revolutionize the donation industry, are you?

Need some assistance? Are you not as tech-savvy as others and feel like you need a little hand on getting started? That’s not a problem. We always strive to make our solution as easy to use as possible. Whether it is by offering our service in many different languages, adding more coins or by assisting personally, we aim to focus on our customers. If you are in need of some help, please go to our contact page, where you can specify your request. More interested in talking to a real human being straight away? Send an e-mail to Xena: [email protected].io or reach out to her through Telegram: @xenaNOW.

What Is USDT?

USDT is an Ethereum-based token. Each USDT unit is backed by a US dollar, which exists in the reserve of Tether Limited and can be obtained through the Tether platform. USDT can be transferred, stored, spent, like any other cryptocurrency. And, of course, it can be used for transactions. This is where NOWPayments steps in, now offering our clients to receive and make payments in USTD! 

USDT was created to facilitate the transactions between the national currencies, providing users with a stable alternative to other cryptos and fiat payment systems. We at NOWPayments are glad to support a coin that will guarantee a convenient and smooth purchase experience for our partners!

NOWPayments is a leading crypto payment gateway service that aims to support the maximum amount of coins while providing high speed and no hidden fees!

Apart from that, NOWPayments have the following advantages:

• The instant auto conversion of your funds: no risk of losing funds to market price fluctuations!
• The widest among the competitors’ list of supported coins.
• An easy to deploy API with an in-depth manual.
• Custody-free service with no hidden fees
• Support agents are available 27/7

Nowadays we all have the possibility to send money across the planet with the use of the beloved technology called Blockchain. We simply generate an address that links to a wallet that’s part of either a person’s portfolio or a company’s treasure. Next thing we do is open up our own wallet, decide how much of our cryptocurrency we want to send, fill in the wallet address and press send. That’s as easy as it gets. The mechanics behind it are a bit more complex so we’re not going to dive into that today. Today we’ll focus on the size of these payments that are performed on the Bitcoin blockchain. These are not the cups of coffees we are talking about, but more so the exchanges and other mysterious whales playing games. 

5. 109,234 BTC — 20 November 2018

We start off strong with a transaction that was made last year in November. This transactions was performed from one wallet to another transferring over 500 million USD at the time in a matter of minutes. It’s impressive to say the least that it’s possible and nerve wracking at the same time for the person performing these transactions. Now, this wallet is allegedly aligned with Binance, one of the biggest exchanges currently up and running. Big Bitcoin whales entering and leaving their service is nothing new and the company stacking up on Bitcoin is neither. When scrolling through the Blockchain Explorer and chasing down these payments we see that most of these wallet do not currently still hold these big amounts. One thing that could be true is Binance moving around their funds from time to time to keep them ‘SAFU’. Because as a wise man once said; ‘Funds are safu’.

4. 130,004 BTC — 10 January 2019

This is where we get mysterious real quick. This wallet contains 118,804 BTC at this very moment which brings the owner of it to number 3 of the ‘bitcoin rich list’. The nature of this transaction, why it was done and from which person to another is unclear. After exploring the transactions a little we can see this person is still actively involved with his Bitcoin that went into his wallet back in January. Thing is, the coins went in from multiple addresses and have since then left towards multiple other addresses. With every couple of months a couple thousand BTC leaving the wallet and then moving on to smaller wallets, it could be part of a bigger organization. It may just be one of the major exchanges that’s using this as their cold wallet. We can all see what happens to the wallet, but we might never know who owns it.

3. 180.000 BTC — 7 March 2014 

This transaction has surpassed the mark of a hundred million dollars, even back in 2014. Today, that transaction would have been worth over 1.4 billion US dollars. Imagine Jeff Bezos sending over that kind of cash to one of his other accounts like it’s nothing. The thing here is, this wallet had contained over 200,000 BTC in total but is currently holding not a single Bitcoin. The last transaction was performed back in 2017 after a series of transactions chopping up the total amount of Bitcoin into smaller portions. One thing that’s suspected at this stage is the involvement in money laundering with the use of Bitcoin. The person kept transaction the Bitcoin into smaller wallets in tiny portions of the total wealth, which leaves no trace at the end. This could have been a way to transfer the money into FIAT-currency without leaving anyone suspecting a thing. 

2. 194,993 BTC — 22 November 2013

Back in 2013, Bitcoin was certainly not worth what it is nowadays. The entire landscape looked completely different. Not 3000 cryptocurrencies that we have today, but several hundreds of them with most of them being irrelevant compared to Bitcoin. The ruling exchanges were different as well back then. One of the major exchanges back in 2013, after the whole fiasco with Mt.Gox, was Bitstamp. An exchange that’s still up and running today as ‘the longest standing Bitcoin exchange’. To be fully compliant with regulations and all, especially after a series of breaches, Bitstamp underwent an audit. This is basically a procedure to prove you’re in the possession of the funds you claim to possess. In this case, probably a third party received all of the Bitcoin possessed by Bitstamp to verify their possession of the claimed funds and sent it back afterwards. Back then this meant to company owned more than hundred million in Bitcoin, but today that would’ve meant this company is holding over 1,5 billion dollars. Talking about Unicorns.

1. 500,000 BTC — 16 November 2011

This is around 3,5 percent of the total Bitcoin that is around these days, incredible to imagine that it had been transferred back in 2011 not knowing it would be that special nowadays. The person back in 2011 sending over 1 Million worth of Bitcoin over to another address would have never imagined that as of today, that transaction would be worth over 4 Billion US dollars. At the all-time high of Bitcoin back in 2017, this was close to 10 Billion dollars. Imagine sending over that kind of capital to someone else to miss a letter or number in the address, how would you feel then? After performing this huge transaction a ton of other transactions were made leaving around 100+ BTC in each wallet it went through. Finally, around 490,000 coins ended up in a wallet that’s marked as ‘Mt.Gox’. Let’s hope for the holder that his funds were not stolen during the breach and all of his funds are now gone.

One thing that’s interesting though, the wallet has suddenly received a donation from a wallet that’s marked as ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’. The wallet that’s linked to Satoshi has transaction linking back to 2009 that are marked with ‘Bitcoin Genesis’ which indicates that these are the very first transactions ever performed. Now, who this person is, we might never know. It sure as hell is very interesting.

With over 300,000 transactions happening every single day, there’s big and small transactions happening each minute. Where these big whales spend around 0.1 BTC in fees, that’s more than another person could ever own. The cool thing about the Blockchain is the fact that it’s open for anyone to have a look. We never see the big payments that occur between the banks or financial institutions, but we can now actually see this occurring. One thing for sure, eyes are on these big whales’ wallets. Whenever a sudden move happens, traders start to move their funds as well to beat the market to it. What would you do if you saw one of these transactions happening today?