Bitcoin Checkout Functionality

[NMPHIL]

Does anyone have any solutions for adding bitcoin/cryptocurrency checkout functionality? Many other top e-commerce platforms offer solutions out of the box or at least some documentation on how to integrate but I can't seem to find a peep on Miva that isn't older than 3 years old.

I'm not so excited to just approach Miva approved devs if they don't have experience in the space as security is obviously a concern.

Does anyone on this platform have any experience integrating functionality like this?

[Viscott]

Interested in this as well.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

There is plenty of experiance in the Miva Developer's community as several of us have done payment modules for outside firms. What we don't have are enough clients/customers to pay for the proper development of said module. This gets brought up at least four times a year, but the once talk of funding comes in, the crowd grows silent. :)

[NMPHIL]

I may not be understanding you correctly, but I imagine the crowd goes silent because people don't want to pay for dev costs for a module to be used by other companies. I certainly don't mind paying for devs time on my site, but not an open module. Do you have any specific experience building modules related to cryptocurrency? Not general payment modules. I'm specifically looking for a dev with experience in the crypto space due to security/privacy concerns.

[Gordon - Phosphor Media]

I may not be understanding you correctly, but I imagine the crowd goes silent because people don't want to pay for dev costs for a module to be used by other companies.

Yes, you are misunderstanding. No one wants to pay (example, not accurate price) $15,000 for the development, OR get 10 stores together to pay $1500 each. No one said this module would be free or open, unless it was developed by Miva, and they might charge a premium (instead of including it with standard Merchant).

No one (outside of Miva, and maybe not even then) has experience writing cryptocurrency modules. There are none, so how would anyone get experience?

[delcorsets]

I was always hopeful that a Bitcoin merchant service would team up with Miva - if a developer at BitPay or Coinbase helped to develop the module, then it could require the use of a bitcoin merchant service with their company. I personally have a wallet and merchant account with BitPay and have sent them a couple emails expressing my interest in seeing an integration with Miva... so far no response from them.

Currently I can still accept Bitcoin payment as phone orders or in-store orders, but it's not a very elegant solution going back and forth with clients via email to send BitPay invoices / receive payments for an order that was initiated from our website.

I wonder if BitPay (or other Bitcoin service) heard enough interest from the Miva community if they would consider it a worthwhile investment to help fund the development of a module by a Miva developer, or work with them to help develop one...

[NMPHIL]

Yes, you are misunderstanding. No one wants to pay (example, not accurate price) $15,000 for the development, OR get 10 stores together to pay $1500 each. No one said this module would be free or open, unless it was developed by Miva, and they might charge a premium (instead of including it with standard Merchant).

No one (outside of Miva, and maybe not even then) has experience writing cryptocurrency modules. There are none, so how would anyone get experience?

I've literally posted multiple times we'd be willing to pay for development of it. Not sure why this continues to be repeated. My only caveat was that I wasn't interested in having it developed as an open option for all users if I'm footing the bill for it.

Maybe no one has experience on Miva, but there are plenty of integrations out on the market for what we're asking for, many that have been around for a while. What I'm asking is if someone who may have had experience building one outside of Miva (and therefore understands the unique security/privacy concerns that come along with it) that could apply it to building one on this platform.

[Gordon - Phosphor Media]

I've literally posted multiple times we'd be willing to pay for development of it. Not sure why this continues to be repeated. My only caveat was that I wasn't interested in having it developed as an open option for all users if I'm footing the bill for it.

Maybe no one has experience on Miva, but there are plenty of integrations out on the market for what we're asking for, many that have been around for a while. What I'm asking is if someone who may have had experience building one outside of Miva (and therefore understands the unique security/privacy concerns that come along with it) that could apply it to building one on this platform.

Right, yet this is a Miva forum, so it is frequented by Miva users and developers. (Don't recall seeing plugin developers for Magento posting here, like, ever.) Maybe it would work better to find a platform that has multiple bitcoin integration vendors and contact them. Even if they don't know Miva Merchant, you might be able to partner them with a Miva Merchant developer to create the Miva 'wrapper' around their core code.

Due to the Miva Merchant architecture, which is uncommonly powerful and versatile, many integrations end up being more expensive than other platforms.
And with a crypto-payment integration, it cannot be done cheaply.

[NMPHIL]

Right, yet this is a Miva forum, so it is frequented by Miva users and developers. (Don't recall seeing plugin developers for Magento posting here, like, ever.)

Oh ok, thanks for the clarity Gordon. Appreciate your help - will keep you and Phosphor Media in mind when I find a solution needing a Miva dev!

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Does anyone have any solutions for adding bitcoin/cryptocurrency checkout functionality? Many other top e-commerce platforms offer solutions out of the box or at least some documentation on how to integrate but I can't seem to find a peep on Miva that isn't older than 3 years old.

I'm not so excited to just approach Miva approved devs if they don't have experience in the space as security is obviously a concern.

Does anyone on this platform have any experience integrating functionality like this?

Are you wanting to accept native bitcoin, or are you wanting a checkout module that integrates with a particular bitcoin clearing house? Those would be dramatically different. A checkout module that involves bitcoin directly I haven't seen on shopping carts as that would be impractical given a transaction can take an hour or more to clear. There's also the issue where a shopper may not want to pay in that way because they have no recourse if they've sent you raw bitcoin and you don't deliver their product; if they send you bitcoin, and it's recorded in the blockchain, it's done, they can't get it back from you.

I have seen certain websites taking bitcoin, but it's usually by way of integration with a particular bitcoin clearinghouse like Coinbase, which means shoppers who want to pay in bitcoin would have to have an account at that particular clearinghouse, move bitcoin into it, check out, and then it works in a real time manner like a credit card checkout hitting a payment gateway. That would likely be a far more straightforward payment module and just means coding the module to integrate with the API from the particular clearinghouse. Something to check for, as perhaps there's a bitcoin clearing house that does this, would be to see if any have an API which mimics something else already out there with a public API. For example, we've seen payment gateways pop up that simply copy authorize.net's API, so our authorize.net module can be pointed at them instead by adjusting the URL. Similarly, a bitcoin clearing house could probably mimic PayPal's API for a traditional paypal account transaction (non-credit card, where you log in on their site and transfer the money), then you'd use the PayPal module, customer leaves the site to the clearing house, logs in, approves, then they're redirected back to the store to finalize the transaction.

[NMPHIL]

Are you wanting to accept native bitcoin, or are you wanting a checkout module that integrates with a particular bitcoin clearing house? Those would be dramatically different. A checkout module that involves bitcoin directly I haven't seen on shopping carts as that would be impractical given a transaction can take an hour or more to clear. There's also the issue where a shopper may not want to pay in that way because they have no recourse if they've sent you raw bitcoin and you don't deliver their product; if they send you bitcoin, and it's recorded in the blockchain, it's done, they can't get it back from you.

I have seen certain websites taking bitcoin, but it's usually by way of integration with a particular bitcoin clearinghouse like Coinbase, which means shoppers who want to pay in bitcoin would have to have an account at that particular clearinghouse, move bitcoin into it, check out, and then it works in a real time manner like a credit card checkout hitting a payment gateway. That would likely be a far more straightforward payment module and just means coding the module to integrate with the API from the particular clearinghouse. Something to check for, as perhaps there's a bitcoin clearing house that does this, would be to see if any have an API which mimics something else already out there with a public API. For example, we've seen payment gateways pop up that simply copy authorize.net's API, so our authorize.net module can be pointed at them instead by adjusting the URL. Similarly, a bitcoin clearing house could probably mimic PayPal's API for a traditional paypal account transaction (non-credit card, where you log in on their site and transfer the money), then you'd use the PayPal module, customer leaves the site to the clearing house, logs in, approves, then they're redirected back to the store to finalize the transaction.

I agree with you on not supporting native bitcoin directly but would prefer to integrate with something like Coinbase, BitPay, etc. like you suggested.

Thank you for the insight re: APIs and the ability to mimic one using a module - great input that I can use while looking for development options. Much appreciated

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Yep there's several module developers who have experience with payment mods of that nature, just calling a remote API, so that will definitely widen your options without them needing to necessarily have experience with bitcoin directly. I'll mention it to our developers to see if it's something that could go on the roadmap; perhaps one of the popular clearinghouses has an easy to adapt API.

[scottd21]

I know it has been many years, but has there been any new thoughts around this? After contacting support about this, it turns out there is no app or easy way to implement this beside custom development. Anyone doing this yet? Would love if there was a Coinbase or similar adapter for the payment methods. Thank you!
--Scott

[Rick Wilson]

I haven't seen a true Bitcoin or Crypto Payment Gateway take significant market share. I think for now the best options are using PayPal or Square where you can use BC and Crypto as a form of payment.

[scottd21]

Thanks Rick, I appreciate the response. We are just trying to get ahead of the curve. :) I will take a look at Square and Paypal. Thank you,
--Scott