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OpenNode – Bitcoin Payment Processor
- Hasz 3mo agoVery impressed at net cost. I used to run a small ecom business targeting total prices in the range of $3-10. At $3, payment processing is nearly 11-12% of costs, which is absurd, more if you amortize the occasional chargeback/fraud. Lightning can do it for <<0.1% net cost even at the low end, which is incredible. There are plenty of these kinds of vendors on eBay, Aliexpress etc that would be willing to adopt with a bit of help. For whoever posted, your cost calculator should be first thing on the page, and you "How we calculated this number" link is broken
- nohell 3mo agoMonero is even cheaper and more useful as cadh because it's private. Anyone can see Bitcoin history and where the user got their coins.
- dfish 3mo agoThey are both useful. Monero is a bit more tricky to use, there is no concept of Lightning network, you still have to wait around 7 minutes for the transaction to settle. It's not bad, but it is different. The transparency in Bitcoin is a feature not a bug.
- nohell 3mo agoCIA uses Bitcoin for intelligence gathering: https://cryptobriefing.com/cia-bitcoin-intelligence-gathering-tool/ https://cryptobriefing.com/cia-bitcoin-intelligence-gatherin... Really? Did we IT people decide giving up privacy for security is a good idea?
- grim_io 3mo agoThe main grifters care for neither.
- kube-system 3mo agoIt's hardly just them. This tech has been commercialized for over a decade. https://www.chainalysis.com/blockchain-intelligence/ https://www.chainalysis.com/blockchain-intelligence/ They also do work to deanonymize other blockchains, including monero.
- akimbostrawman 3mo ago>including monero which they still haven't actually broken despite empty marketing claims which in reality is busting people on KYC CEXs.
- kube-system 3mo agoI've also seen rumors suggesting they have attacked it via network traffic analysis, which also seems plausible Whether or not they've done it by breaking the protocol itself might be of academic concern but is irrelevant in practical terms.
- akimbostrawman 3mo ago>but is irrelevant in practical terms It very much is not. If I use cash to commit a crime but then deposit it into a KYC bank account which is then used as a side channel to get me caught does not mean its the cashes fault. XMR privacy and anonymity can not protect you from going out of your way to convert it into inferior surveillance currency which then gets you busted. That's basic logic and should be a obvious technical limitation.
- kube-system 3mo agoIf they've attacked it via netflow analysis, then it doesn't matter to a criminal whether or not it's a problem in the protocol because how is a criminal supposed to use it if not on the internet? By "practical terms" I mean that a criminal sitting in prison isn't going to care whether the vulnerability that got them there was layer 7 or not. It doesn't fucking matter to them at that point. Everything on the internet is vulnerable to netflow traffic deanonymization; it is a fundamental limitation with the design of the internet. The only thing that stops these attacks from being more common is the relative difficulty of obtaining the required data.
- winterrdog 3mo agoThere are solutions to this as well e.g. CoinJoin and using Taproot or Musig to hide redeem scripts and probably more They make it incredibly hard to make sense of gathered intel
- agalush 3mo agoLightning payments are not stored onchain and have already been proved more private than monero payments
- akimbostrawman 3mo agoconsidering actual criminals do not use lightning but monero it should be obvious that is not the case.
- Ferret7446 3mo agoThat's more the fact that lightning is a bit of a pain to use. It has a chicken and egg network growth problem, which is doubled on top of the chicken and egg problem of its host crypto
- akimbostrawman 3mo agoThat does not make any sense. btc even lightning still has about 100 times the user and ecosystem. Nobody uses it because it obviously it is not secure.
- Anon1096 3mo agoI would guess the price for payment processing drops tremendously when you don't need to handle fraud or chargebacks at all. It's for sure worse for consumers but I do think it has its place (for example adult content that has huge chargeback risk or straight up blocked by other processors).
- AnthonyMouse 3mo ago> for example adult content that has huge chargeback risk or straight up blocked by other processors This has the default inverted. The best place for the traditional payments system is when you're making a large purchase from a questionable seller, and then you're willing to pay extra for the assurance that you can reverse the transaction. If you're making a small purchase or buying from someone you regularly do business with, why would you want the cost of other customers' chargeback fraud or use of stolen cards to be added to the price you pay?
- Ferret7446 3mo agoOr without a monopoly/mafia taking its protection fee cut
- jcfrei 3mo agolightning is a pain to set up, you have to open a channel and keep funding it - so if we are talking about small amounts these costs should definitely be added to your calculation. or you use lightning via an exchange - but that again kinda defeats the purpose of bitcoin. in fact all of this could probably be achieved much simpler by just using a stablecoin on tron, solana or one of the ether chains and forget about the whole lightning sending and bitcoin hedging. I doubt you can get lower transaction costs end-to-end staying on btc.
- w4yai 3mo agoGlad to see such initiative on bitcoin !
- mikelovenotwar 3mo agoBroken link on the pricing page "How did we calculate this number " -> https://help.opennode.com/en/articles/3179796-where-are-opennode-s-bitcoin-exchange-rates-sourced-from https://help.opennode.com/en/articles/3179796-where-are-open... -> "Uh oh. That page doesn’t exist. Try searching for your answer or just send us a message."
- snacsla 3mo ago[dead]
- samantha-wiki 3mo agoIs it open source? If not, why choose the name “OpenNode”?
- askonomm 3mo agoJust like how OpenAI is open source.
- giancarlostoro 3mo agoOpen as in "The door is open come in and give us your money"
- pelagicAustral 3mo agoOpenAI rings a bell
- Retr0id 3mo ago"Open as in wallet"
- iamsaitam 3mo agoAvoid trademarking fees! No need to spend money on trademarking what can't be trademarked ;)
- a3w 3mo agoSo, OpenAI is certainly never trademarked? /s
- cwmma 3mo agothey just lost a case in Europe about being trademarked
- kube-system 3mo agoIronically, OpenAI would be trademarkable because they're not open. > OPEN describes a feature of the services provided by applicant, in that applicant provides a "public node" that is accessible to anyone and allows users to interact with the blockchain network. See attached from opennode.com. Thus, "OPEN" is descriptive of the applicant's services, in that it conveys the open and public nature of the node that the applicant provides. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn97399846&docId=NFIN20230225112027#docIndex=4&page=1 https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn97399846&docI...
- octocop 3mo agoLooks solid
- jdw64 3mo agoAmerican-style words are really hard these days. I thought 'open' meant source code is available, but at some point, starting with OpenAI, it seems like 'open' has come to mean 'we'll open your wallet.
- repelsteeltje 3mo agoThe ambiguity of the word "Open" has a long history. Going back to at least late 1980s, when X Window "skin" OPEN LOOK (by AT&T - Sun consortium) had license issues and Open Source Foundation started work on OSF Motif.
- jrm4 3mo agoObligatory "Stallman was right" here. Seriously, though. Without legal teeth and against marketing, "Open" never much stood a chance.
- kube-system 3mo agoAnd that isn't even the original meaning either! "open source" in reference to software was itself a term stolen from the intelligence community. "open" is simply a vague word that you are assigning more meaning to than it actually means.
- mothballed 3mo agoIf they don't swoop in with random check-ins hassling you for docs for "muh KYC" and "muh AML compliance" the moment you do anything outside of the boring middle ground then they're ahead of basically 99+% of all the other tradfi-interlocking offerings.
- dfish 3mo agoIt is what it is. You have to implement KYC if you want fiat rails. A merchant can't KYC every single person that comes to the store. But you could build a system to eventually ban wallets that could be tied to criminal activity. The merchant can also pick to use Lightning and keep the Bitcoin instead of selling it for fiat.
- aantix 3mo agoGenuine question - why would someone hold bitcoin for regular, everyday purchases? The buying power is all over the place.
- mothballed 3mo agoThis has tradfi banking ramps. You don't need to hold it. You can treat BTC as basically a payment network instead of something like the visa/mastercard cartel.
- Retr0id 3mo agoafaict, the main advantages of buying things with crypto are (potentially) lower transaction fees and latencies, and less red tape restricting who can buy what from whom. If you use a "tradfi onramp", doesn't it negate all of that? Why not just use tradfi all the way, for that transaction?
- mothballed 3mo agoThere is no requirement to use the tradfi ramps. It is merely offered as an option. But as it pertains to banking in the USA, a couple differentiating qualities I will offer before the goalposts will inevitably be shifted yet again to damn my response 1) Settlement time (wires only sporadically free in US, plus usually settle slower) 2) Irreversibility. 3) The tradfi ramps, if used, only have to be OK with crypto ramp, rather than the whole host of underlying transactions. It is conceivable some banks will tolerate crypto while not tolerating, say, directly handling a particular transaction. 4) Lowered friction for international transaction 5) One or both sides can be unbanked.
- jancsika 3mo ago> (potentially) lower transaction fees <transactionFeeDiscussion> Citation needed. I'm looking at the transaction fees for lightning network and they are in the range of FedNow or RTP. For Bitcoin it's not even close. </transactionFeeDiscussion>
- greyface- 3mo ago
- charcircuit 3mo ago>Bitcoin - the only legitimate cryptocurrency secure enough for transacting at scale. I prefer the trend of using stable coins for payment instead. I think merchants are much more willing to work with a digital dollars than with something with constantly fluctuating value.
- dfish 3mo agoStablecoins can be censored. You deposited into Huobi 5 years ago? Banned. Now we keep your stablecoins, thanks for playing. You can't censor Bitcoin.
- charcircuit 3mo ago>You can't censor Bitcoin. Your payment processor could be legally restricted from paying you your bitcoin.
- nohell 3mo agoAs a Chinese person I can confirm. Monero is the way.
- hggh 3mo agoAlso BCH + CashFusion for extra privacy
- nohell 3mo ago
- pixelatedindex 3mo agoI’m a little confused by the fees. In their pricing page (https://opennode.com/pricing https://opennode.com/pricing) it says: You request $100, the customer pays 0.00152 BTC, and then you get $99. But 0.00152 BTC is almost $100? If I’m a business why would I pay $100 in BTC fees for a $100 transaction? What is this solving? I’ll never understand crypto. Edit: nvm I’m dumdum. Will get coffee. Thanks to everyone who replied.
- bastawhiz 3mo agoIt sounds like the fee is about $1.00: the delta between $100 and $99.
- jonbwhite 3mo agoYou don't. They are accepting $100 worth of BTC, converting it to dollars and giving you the dollars. They are basically operating like a credit card processor with a 1% fee, allowing you to accept bitcoin but operate in dollars.
- dfish 3mo ago?? The merchant requests 100 USD. The user pays X BTC equivalent to 100 USD. The merchant receives 99 USD aka the fee is 1 USD
- tremarley 3mo ago$100 is the transaction value,it is not the cost of the transaction fees. The fee is $1. They charge a 1% fee for instant payouts.
- nohell 3mo agoWhy not just accept Monero? It acts more like cash. Do you really want to leak every transaction you've ever done, every time you buy something? Bitcoin is surveillance capitalism dream!
- Cider9986 3mo agoBitcoin is slow as well, unusable for payments. I still think Bitcoin is better than fiat because at least it doesn't require an ID to make a wallet and it's self custody. Monero is the best crypto we have for currencies, though. And currency is the only value I see in crypto.
- hggh 3mo ago> Bitcoin is slow as well, unusable for payments Indeed, but fortunately, BTC was forked at the right time
- simonmales 3mo agoLightning ain't slow though.
- futurecat 3mo agoThey've been in business for a long time and I used them when I experimented with QR code for street artists to receive tips. OpenNode is very simple to implement!
- jrm4 3mo agoInteresting to see that this crypto thing might still have legs, as someone who's invested a lot of time (and thankfully, not a painful amount of money) into the idea. Yes, it's scam city too, but it will be interesting to see if "permissionless money" actually happens and how. And for the record, most people here pointing out that bitcoin itself, as perhaps this "opennode" may be useless here, are correct. Bitcoin mostly can no longer do what it says on the box, but newer forms can.
- 5701652400 3mo agonot your keys, not your money.
- 5701652400 3mo agowhen we will finally have good self-hosted, open-source, BTC gateways?
- simonmales 3mo agoYou mean payment processing? BTCPay Server is the defacto standard I would argue. Have used it for accepting LN transactions for years.
- 5701652400 3mo agoyep, but web ui for it is far from Stripe quality. and C#, I would rather have something in Go/Rust. it always stike me how whacky ETH dev community is (based on their slack). like you have ETH core written in Go, just make a nice open source ETH gateway with nice UI. nope. neither core team nor community don't care. and BTC has some Windows XP era C# monstrosity
- winterrdog 3mo agoThought you wanted software that just works ?
- 5701652400 3mo agointeresting. maybe becauase I code all-day, every day, for couple decades, knowing what is inside software kind of important to me. what's under the hood.
- simonmales 3mo agoI have zero experience with C# and it all lives inside a docker container and just works. Naturally, I would prefer a non-windows language, but it is literally a black box that works.
- 5701652400 3mo agobut you also got to have .NET runtime right? so it is bloat. I have allegeric reaction to bloat of any kind (especially oversized Docker containers)
- seany 3mo agoThis would be more interesting with other coins. Monero or cash come to mind
- desktopentree 3mo ago[dead]
- kogasa240p 3mo agoDoes it support Monero?
- Palmik 3mo agoSo, this is 'open' as in 'OpenAI', not as in 'open source'. What's the benefit of this compared to something like NOW Payments for merchants (or the myriad of alternatives)? NOW Payments supports a wide range of crypto currencies as well.
- fishgoesblub 3mo agoWhy this instead of the opensource, well used, and trusted BTCPay that you can self-host and has 0% fees?
- winterrdog 3mo agoThe complexity involved. Most people just want to get on with their work and not get lost into details of self hosting (plus maintaining) yet another service. probably they've self hosted sth else and they're spread thin on resources. Their rates are not a big inconvenience, IMO
- zdkl 3mo agoI don't have much substance to add to the discussion but this kind of topic is very relevant to the GNU project Taler which aims to bring an open payment infrastructure to general use/"the market". They have significant investment and institutional interest notably from the EU and established organisations such as NLNet. I am not affiliated but figure this deserves more attention, especially in this conversation. https://www.taler.net/en/index.html https://www.taler.net/en/index.html
- pooploop64 3mo agoWow I can't believe this lightning crap is still going. No wonder crypto is still a joke, you clowns are still pushing Bitcoin like it's the be-all-end-all of crypto, and not the first ever reference implementation of blockchain. It's so obsolete at this point that it's not even funny anymore. It's sad. I wanted so badly for crypto to be a thing. But it never will because of these people. And I don't even want it anymore if it has to be bitcoin until we're all dead. All of the criticisms of crypto are 100% accurate when regarding Bitcoin. It destroys the environment and the parts economy simultaneously with it's ridiculous hardware requirements. Lightning doesn't make that go away. I remember 6 years ago there was already reams of new blockchains that made Bitcoin look like the cotton gin. And they will never be used for anything. Please switch to scalping pokemon cards from kids or something, it would be less despicable and damage the world less.
- greyface- 3mo agoBitcoin is designed to be unkillable; the network won't die just because some people dislike it. The difficulty adjustment will keep it going no matter how much or little hash power is spent on it. As long as it doesn't die, it will have stronger Lindy than any permissionless replacement. Permissioned alternatives (stablecoins, Taler, etc) may find some temporary success, but are bound to monetary authorities that have no choice but to self-sabotage in the long run. Its only real monetary competitor at this point in time is gold, which cannot be sent over the Internet without the aid of a trusted third party. Objections made from an aesthetic frame, such as this one, are understandable but have little to no impact on its long-term success.
- pooploop64 3mo agoIs this AI? None of it has anything to do with my comment. Power usage is not an "aesthetic" element it's literally as far from that as you can get.
- greyface- 3mo agoWhat I'm saying is that your (and others') distaste for the amount of power currently allocated to it is an aesthetic preference, and has no bearing on the viability or utility of the Bitcoin network. It will consume exactly as much or as little energy as people throw at it. And it's not actually being allocated that much energy right now: global air conditioning power consumption is ~10x global bitcoin mining power consumption. Is air conditioning destroying the environment?
- mikalauskas 3mo agoPaying kagi subscription with opennode. Works flawlessly and instant
- ranguna 3mo agoPeople still use bitcoin? I thought it was a vanity coin now
- futurecat 3mo agoWhy was it flagged?
- chipcoinchc 3mo agoWorking on an open-source Bitcoin-compatible testnet exploring post-quantum cryptography. Interested in distributed systems, applied cryptography, Bitcoin, networking, and open source.
- gurjeet 3mo agoThis is a message for the person who flagged the submission: I wonder what’s the reason this was flagged? Genuinely curious.