Payments processor BitPay finally added support for SegWit transactions. It will reduce the transaction cost for the firm and the users as well. While it is good news for retail Bitcoin adoption, Bitcoin educator and entrepreneur, Andreas Antonopoulos still won’t choose BitPay.
The next important step for the growth of Bitcoin should be eventual merchant adoption of Bitcoin. While the idea of Store of Value works just fine, it needs fees and transactions volume for the mining network to thrive as well.
Currently, Bitcoin payments are considerably cheaper and faster than banking transactions over a certain amount. Nevertheless, it’s usage is limited for micropayments and regular retail purchases. Service providers like BitPay, GoinGate, Shopify, etc. help in sending invoices and processing payments for merchants. Other payment processors like Coinbase, CoinGate and so on adopted SegWit far earlier to stick together with their competitions.
Until 2016 for a brief period, Bitcoin was accepted as a means of payment across many websites including WordPress and Microsoft. And, BitPay was one of the leading gateway providers.
However, with the rise in its’ price, the average fee per transactions is over $1.5. Hence, the merchants started phasing out of the market.
Never for BitPay: Andreas Antonopoulos
Bitcoiners do not tolerate any level of resistance to their choices, and will mostly look to opt for open sources applications and services. When BitPay infamously took sides against the SegWit decision in 2016, Antonop’s choice of payment processor was born. He re-tweeted the news on SegWit adoption saying,
This is one of those cases where “Better late than never” doesn’t apply. “Never” works for me.
BitPay blew up their business starting in 2016 on a series of ideological crusades. But we got open and free @BtcpayServer out of that mess and it is far better!
Recently, BTCPay Serer added support for P2EP privacy-based transactions on Bitcoin and addition of the Liquid Network. Blockstream is one of the leading tech contributors to the BTCPay project. Furthermore, the open-source project also received a grant from Jack Dorsey‘s Square Crypto Inc. last year in September.
Bitcoin Alternatives
Four fours down the line, Segwit2x Bitpay’s Segwit2X proposals have lost traction. The most prominent hard fork of Bitcoin: Bitcoin Cash [BCH] is currently at their lowest levels w.r.t. BTC.
Not only BitPay but also businesses of Bitmain and other major miners who supported BCH incurred massive losses in the 2018 bear market. Nevertheless, the adoption of Bitcoin payments has been limited including the adoption of Lightning and Liquid Network as well. The role played by payment processors will be essential in the next phase of growth for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Which protocol do you think will gain the most payment traction? Please share your views with us.
