Bitcoin?

[bonny]

I received an email this morning from Square, announcing that I can now accept Bitcoin as a form of payment without a service charge through the end of 2026.  Honestly, I hadn't considered accepting or not accepting this form of payment. No one has ever asked if I do and I have zero experience with it, so I'm wondering if anyone has a point of view they can share so I can form an informed opinion on it.  

Thanks in advance,

Bonny Wagoner - Artist/Illustrator

[TheRealChipA]

@bonny I've had a few customers ask the past few years.  So I enabled it just in case.  At my shop we've always said that "we gladly accept your hard-earned money HOWEVER you choose to spend it with us."  (That's out reply to "do you accept cards," which people should never have to ask but have to ask because of short-sighted businesses who complain about card fees. It's even on our FAQ page.). Anyway....

I have a handful of customers who are deep into bitcoin and love to use their bitcoin wallet.  I'll be announcing that we accept it soon.  Will it be even a blip to my bottom line?  Nah.  But that's not the point.  The point is that Square is making it easy for me to say that we don't care how customers give us their money -- we only care that they do give us their money.

I've also added us to the Bitcoin seller map (via a convenient Square setting) so that the true crypto geeks can easily find us because I'm told they are rabid about spending their coin with sellers like me.  

We'll see if it turns into anything.  For now my plan is to keep all bitcoin revenue in bitcoin and track its growth or decline.  As with any gambling addiction, it's best to only put money on the line I can afford to lose.

[bonny]

Thanks for the perspective.  I tell my customers I accept any form of payment except an I.O.U., so I guess I will be enabling that function on my Square account.  According to the email I received, Square will be converting it to dollars.  I think I can live with that.  

Many thanks,

@bonny 

[Daniel_anigboro]

Amazing Deal with BTC

[rtfulk]

@bonny We've had the feature turned on every since it started, we have yet to take any bitcoin as payment, but we do have a percentage of our sales buy bitcoin. Just be informed you may not be charged a fee to take bitcoin, but you will be charged a fee when you sell bitcoin. I think Square takes 1-1.25% of what you sell. If you have it deposited directly to your bank account I don't know if the fee would apply to that.

[bonny]

I noticed in the term and conditions that Square doesn’t support dispute handling or chargebacks for bitcoin payments. Any transaction issues must be resolved between the seller and the customer directly.  I hope that it's not abused, but I haven't had a dispute for anything to date so I'm not going to worry about it.

@bonny 

[Andy-Zach]

I'd be happy to turn on bitcoin IF I could keep all the money as cash NOT bitcoin. I don't want to own any because the value is not stable.

Right now, Square requires me to keep at least 1% of revenue as bitcoin, so I won't use it.

[TheRealChipA]

@Andy-Zach I think you are under a misconception.  When we enable bitcoin, there are a few things at play, and all have settings to control them.

• If a customer pays with bitcoin, that sales goes into our bitcoin wallet.  We can choose to either leave it there or sell it and put it in our Square checking/savings.
• There is a setting for bitcoin conversions, which is what I think you are referring to. If you turn it on, then it will automatically convert x% of your daily sales into bitcoin.  While the minimum is currently 1% as you mentioned, you are NOT required to have it turned on at all.  If it is off, you can still accept bitcoin as payment if a customer chooses to do so.
• Lastly, we can also choose to buy bitcoin in addition to the above.  But, again, there is no requirement here.  It's just another option for those who want to go all in on bitcoin.

[Andy-Zach]

Thanks. The misconception was this part: "

• There is a setting for bitcoin conversions, which is what I think you are referring to. If you turn it on, then it will automatically convert x% of your daily sales into bitcoin.  While the minimum is currently 1% as you mentioned, you are NOT required to have it turned on at all.  If it is off, you can still accept bitcoin as payment if a customer chooses to do so."
• I did not see that one could turn it off. Perhaps I'll turn on bitcoin after all. No one has asked for it so far--but I don't want to lose a sale.

[TheRealChipA]

None of us do, eh?  Happy to shed some light.  Be well and happy selling!

[LukeNieuw]

Is the bitcoin option only in the US?

[KewaniG]

Yes, excluding New York.

[KewaniG]

I’ll be doing a market event next weekend and while getting my POS revived I’ve been reading over updates and new features. Since then I’ve enabled the option to accept Bitcoin and thought, “how will customers know I accept it”? Then I remembered that Square offers free marketing kits to display so customers know what payments are accepted. Just Google search Square Marketing Kit and select the Bitcoin kit.

This way if a customer wants to pay with bitcoin and is unsure if it’s accepted and decides not to ask, it’ll be publicly displayed. ☺️

 
I’ll come back after the event to give an update.

[thefierycooks]

That is interesting. I did have one customer a few years back asking if he could pay with Bitcoin, but given I didn't have any knowledge of the coin nor how to charge it, I refused and he happily paid with cash. But it looks like crypto is here to stay so might as well use it as a form of payment. I will be looking into that and how it works on Square.