Enable anonymous payments ala Bitcoin/Monero
I've asked around and most people point to Coinbase - any reason why not to consider this as a payment processor for crypto?
Not sure whether that last one was for me. I personally do not trust crypto and would not touch it with a ten-foot pole. From the comments, seems like I'm not the only one. Cash is the way.
Vlad Look at the title of the thread there is "anonymous" in it.
This is not just about cryptocurrency as a checkbox exercise, but cryptocurrency as this is something you can use to pay anonymously.
"Bitcoin" is actually probably the less interesting, as all transactions are publicly available.
Moreoever Coinbase has KYC requirements which goes directly against the "anonymous" requirements, and seems in conflict with the SEC in the US.
This is mildly confusing. Would love if others would jump in with what is really needed to implement on our end.
I would also like to pay privately for privacy-oriented services. For me, that mean payment with Monero or cash. I have stopped using services and stores that try to force me to pay by credit card. Coinbase, BitPay and co offer simple solutions but are not privacy friendly in doubt and work with pigs like CipherTrace.
People (including many in the "crypto space") often fail to distinguish between sender privacy and receiver privacy - and that both sides can legitimately have different requirements.
Kagi, as the Receiver of crypto payments, is a regulated, tax paying entity and it certainly doesn't want to "hide" the fact that they received income via crypto rails. In fact, it is more than likely that they just want to convert into USD asap, in the most cheap and least-bookkeeping hassle way.
It is thus perfectly legit to use a payment processor - which Kagi will have to KYC themselves (but not the user!!) with.
The Users, as the Sender of payments, on the other hand want to "hide" that they spent their coins to Recevier Kagi.
It is thus up to the User to select a crypotocurrency for payment that is inherent "private" such as Monero or, in the case of public blockchain such as Bitcoin, don't pay with with utxos that are associated to their real-life identity. But again, this the job of the user - not the merchant (Kagi)! They should make sure their personal privacy requirements are met, and that they are not shooting themselves in the foot. This is what's ruihildt is confusing imho.
What to choose now?
Assuming Kagi's requirements are:
- accept Bitcoin and Monero as the most asked-for coins
- not hiding this income, and thus be totally fine with KYC-ing themselves (Kagi) with a third-party
- easy integration and reporting (e.g. for bookkeeping)
- convert cryto into fiat (USD)
I would recommend Coinpayments.net as the payment processor . Why?
- They support Bitcoin and Monero. which should make everyone on this thread happy
- They also support Bitcoin Lightning payments (as opposed to Coinbase), which is a novel instant-transfer mechanism of Bitcoin that has much lower fees and much better privacy for the sender. This is a huge draw for the Bitcoin portion of the users (certainly me). While to Kagi,it doesnt make much of a difference (since they receive everything into their custodial Coinpayments walllet anyway), but it would make additional users happy (= moar customers)
- The user does not have to reveal their identity to the payment processor. They just pay the invoice to CP anonymously, and CP communicates back to the merchant "Payment success"
- They take a pretty low transaction processing fee of 0.5%. - vs 1% at Coinbase.
- They support crypto-to-crypto swaps inside their wallet. This is useful for Kagi when they want to consolidate prior to cash out, as they do not have to cash out ten different balances individually. If you fear the exchange rate fluctuation, you could also swap periodically into USDT (Tether) stablecoin.
- Good merchant tools (API, payment button, shopping cart etc) https://www.coinpayments.net/merchant-tools
NOTE: it does not directly support conversion into USD. For that you would need an additional account at an exchange. I would recommend one that supports BTC Lightning (LN), such as Kraken.com or Bitfinex (not Coinbase) but you are free to choose. If you perfer to convert your balance into stablecoins, then you may not care too much.
- Edited
Ingo Thanks for making it clear.
I did contact CoinPayments as a part of my reaserch, using the email provided on their home page contact@uabsv.com and they never replied.
This is already a bad sign. If they also lack the ability to handle crypto to USD that is also bad as we do not want to be 'stuck' dealing either with crypto or crypto exchanges. The solution has to be simple for Kagi too.
Having spent some time in this it is pretty mindboggling that there isn't a company out there that efficiencnly solves this (in my mind) simple need - customer pays in crypto and you get USD. Makes me wonder if it is a technology or a regulatory challenge.
1) It is by definition not annonymous, every transaction is publically viewable on the blockchain so you can see where the money come from and central exchanges know your address. So why jump through all the hoops in the first place?
Not all people use exchanges, many people in "third-world" countries earn bitcoin and there are tons of ways of acquiring KYC-free bitcoin.
2) Most of the mainstream coins have a terrible energy footprint, so supporting that is eh...
I don't want to derail the conversation because this is not truly core to this discussion, but the USD is MUCH MUCH worse for the environment than bitcoin.
I would recommend looking into OpenNode which seemingly handles converting your coins to USD to your bank account. If I recall correctly,they charge a flat 1% fee, which is much more competitive than Stripe's.
I believe IBEX Mercado, a company from Guatemala, also offers conversion to USD to your bank account for (iirc 1.5%), they do work with US banks in addition to other countries.
Please accept a privacy preserving and user friendly way to pay with Bitcoin over the lightning network. Great self hosted software to do this is Btcpayserver for example. Credit card is a no no for many privacy concious bitcoiners that are searching for a good alternative to current search engines.
f321x_ We checked BTCPay and I wrote some remarks about it here
https://kagifeedback.org/d/493-enable-anonymous-payments-ala-bitcoinmonero/50
It would involve Kagi being in the business of managing crypto and crpyto to USD off ramp which we want to avoid. Our team is very small and we are laser focused on the business of search.
As a current user of kagi I'd also like to see this. I get what you're saying about product focus, but think of it as a marketing tool — a privacy preserving search engine that is good and accepts bitcoin opens up a huge pool of potential customers who are pre-aligned with your mission (and let's be honest, a little fanatical).
I second what Pablo said about OpenNode. BitPay also might be worth looking into. The privacy issues related to bitcoin are real, but avoidable and much reduced when using lightning (which also has very low transaction fees).
Got it. I notice that OpenNode does not accept Monero. What is the reason for that and would that be acceptable for everyone here needing Monero support?
Yeah, totally fine. People who want to pay with Monero can easily swap to bitcoin in a privacy preserving way; it's a very normal flow for monero users.
- Edited
I'm fine with OpenNode https://www.opennode.com as well.
They are US-based, well regarded, have excellent tools and integrations - and most importantly support Bitcoin via Lightning.
They take 1% for the fiat conversion (i.e. direct USD payouts), which is pretty much the standard for all-inclusive, carefree providers.
But yes, no Monero. As @pablof7z pointed out, there are multiple private swap services for XMR users to get a few $ into BTC once a month.. that shouldn't be too much of a hurdle.
In general, finding a processor does offers both Monero and fiat payouts (USD) is a challenge. The only one I am aware of is https://nowpayments.io and they charge 2.3-1.5% for the USD conversion (on top of the general 0.5% for each transaction).
The reason, since you asked @Vlad, is purely regulatory. The tech is there and trivial.
State and regulators hate private payment (if cash was invented today, it'd be banned immediately) and they have grown accustomed that they can make Visa, MC, Stripe, Paypal & Co essentially perform police tasks without having to involve a judge.
So they apply all kinds regulatory pressure to banks who offer fiat off-ramps, especially for Monero.
Thus, the unfortunate reality it that either processors
- accept privacy coins but do not offer fiat cashouts << like Coinpayments that I mentioned earlier (sad to hear they didnt respond n the general contact email, but they have a dedicated Business inquiries section which may be more suited https://www.coinpayments.net/supwiz-other)
-or- - do fiat cashouts, but shun privacy coins and stick to Bitcoin (and a few other major ones).
OK thanks for input, we will look into OpenNode now.
I like Monero more than bitcoin, but bitcoin is far better than credit cards, so I would be happy with that.