This article is meant to ease the integration of NowPayments onto your service platform. We have designed it to be in compliance with any kind of background knowledge and therefore this guide is suitable even for complete beginners.

Quickstart

The first thing to do is to sign up on NowPayments website. It can be done in six easy steps:

1. sign up at our account page;
2. activate your account via the e-mail that we have sent you;
3. sign in into your account and open the Dashboard Page;
4. press “Add new key”. You will get an API key, please save it;
5. enter the wallet for funds withdrawal on “Outcome wallet” page;
6. use API!

Please note that at the moment our base currency is USD and the minimum transaction amount that we are able to carry out is an equivalent of 0,003 BTC. We are working hard to lower this number.

Now to the API workflow itself.

• To get the list of the supported currencies: [GET] /currencies
• To get an estimated price in the selected currency: [GET] /estimate
• To create a payment: [POST] /payment
• Тo check the payment status: [GET] /payment/{payment_id}

For further references and more detailed code examples please consult with our full documentation.

There are several good reasons why it is more convenient for your customers to pay with cryptocurrency.  It may be highly beneficial for your business to add crypto payments into the mix. Companies should consider accepting cryptocurrency in order not only to offer existing customers new payment methods, but also to get access to new customers who use cryptocurrency to pay for goods and services. This is a real, win-win way to increase revenues that cannot be ignored.

In this article, we would like to review a few most popular payment systems and compare them to our product, NOWPayments.

BitPay

Founded by Tony Gallippi and Stephen Ferry in May 2011, BitPay became the first operator to work with Bitcoin. Development of the project began because of the need for a quick, safe and cheap way to pay for goods and services with Bitcoin.

Funds can be deposited directly from a Bitcoin wallet or through an authorized supplier. BitPay’s commission is relatively low, up to 1.9%, but the speed of data processing leaves much to be desired. To increase the availability and popularity of the application, BitPay announced support for Bitcoin Cash in addition to other currencies in December 2017. As of right now, BitPay accepts only these two coins and the variety of fiat currencies that are allowed to be exchanged for in BitPay is limited.

Unlike BitPay, NOWPayments is not limited to Bitcoin-like currencies. We are planning on covering as many coins as possible to provide our customers with the most convenient option to choose from. On top of that, we eliminate the need to work with fiat currencies as the withdrawal of funds support stable coins.

CoinPayments

CoinPayments is an online wallet for cryptocurrencies that launched in 2013. It is no longer a newcomer to the crypto market and is a well-respected platform to accept payments in crypto. CoinPayments allows accepting transactions, store different cryptocurrencies, as well as carry out crypto swaps. It has basic functionality and useful options that improve it.

CoinPayments relies on the blockchain technology to ensure security and also possesses additional security measures as two-factor authorization and instant notification of any actions in the account (refill, swap, withdrawal of funds). However, be mindful that 2FA is implemented via e-mail notifications. Also, your funds are kept on the generated wallets and you do not have private keys for them.

Unlike CoinPayments, NOWPayments doesn’t keep your money at all. It is a safer option as the fewer steps there are the fewer possibilities to steal your money could be found. We value your privacy and safety of your funds the most.

Coinbase Commerce

Coinbase has launched a special plugin for the popular e-commerce platform WooCommerce, which will allow merchants to add a function to pay for goods in cryptocurrency on their websites.

Coinbase started off by offering the option of directly sending Bitcoins and Litecoin from Coinbase Commerce and later added the support of Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash transactions. The main drawback of Coinbase Commerce is that it does not allow in-system swaps and you are bounded to withdraw the same currency (one of the four!) that was sent to you.

Unlike Coinbase Commerce, NowPayments supports five currencies from the very beginning and the list is constantly growing!

CoinGate

CoinGate is a service that provides a payment gateway for Bitcoin and more than fifty altcoins. It uses ShapeShift to allow the in-service swaps. CoinGate charges a 1% fee for using the gateway services. It also allows withdrawal of fiat money to various systems, including PayPal.

You should bear in mind that CoinGate is not supported in some countries due to their financial laws and you will have to choose your country of residence during the signing up process. It is also a custodial service, i.d. your funds are kept in newly generated wallets and you have no means of getting their private keys.

Unlike Coingate, as we already have mentioned, NOWPayments has no access to your funds and the withdrawal is immediate and can be done in the cryptocurrency of your choice.

There are several advantages of crypto in comparison to fiat money, and it is vital to be aware of them before making a choice between the two. Check out this educational article by NOWPayments that explains the difference.

Security

The blockchain is notorious for being the safest options of running any kind of transaction. You can secure your payments by integrating NOW Payments and never worry if your bank is going to crash or if a transaction is going to crash. The blockchain’s performance is not affected by minor inconveniences as it is decentralized and stable no matter what.

Privacy

Clearly, not everyone is willing to share their personal information with every payment on the Internet. Cryptocurrency payments are solving this problem as crypto wallets are not linked to the owner’s identity. For someone who is looking not only for profit but also for safety, crypto payments are the best option.

Low fees

Fiat payment systems set their fee high as they don’t have any competitors. Well, let’s change that! Our payment system’s fees are lower than those of the fiat systems and its adoption will be beneficial and profitable both for the users and the companies. You will be able to get more profit from the same amount of payments and customers will pay you directly without the unnecessary intermediacy of the banks.

Multiple currencies

We support multiple coins. It means that your customers can choose the most convenient option for them and overall be more satisfied with your services. More supported currencies mean more accessibility and higher adoption rates among the crypto people. The community would enjoy the lack of unnecessary exchange that causes losses of funds.

Simple API

By far, our development team has worked hard to ensure that the integration will run smoothly on any website or platform. All you need to do is use a simple API with a clear manual.

Instant Conversions

There’s no latency for the funds’ withdrawal. You can use, send, convert them immediately and overall have a bigger and more stable asset turnover.

Stablecoins support

Last but not least, our team has made sure to include stablecoins’ support. They are closer to fiat currencies in terms of their market price. Little volatility makes them more convenient for day-to-day purchases while the blockchain base retains all the benefits of the decentralization. Stablecoin adoption is a necessity for any payment system that is going to be widely used.