Accepting bitcoin: What's your experience?

[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.

[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. 

[GeorgesDeli]

How do I deactivate this bitcoin popup on my register?

[TheRealChipA]

In settings > checkout > payments, move Bitcoin to disabled payments. It’s the same for all payment types. 

but I’m curious. Why would you want to disable it and tell Bitcoin customers they are not welcome at your small business? That seems unwise to me.  I proudly tell my customers I’ll take their hard earned money any way they want to spend it with me. 

[Andy-Zach]

Hi, TheRealChipA. Good question. Here are my reasons: 1) I've never had anyone ask to use Bitcoin; 2) I've never had anyone have only Bitcoin as their only payment option. 3) I regard Bitcoin as morally dubious, since criminals and terrorists use it, and I want nothing to do with it. 4) Bitcoin typically is not backed by any specie, and has no intrinsic value. Rather, its value fluctuates with speculation. I want a stable source of value.

[TheRealChipA]

@Andy-Zach Good answers.  I've only had a few folks want to pay with Bitcoin.  But, in my case, those few have become new regular customers.  They found us on the Bitcoin vendors page and went out of their way to check us out solely for that reason.  So, sticking with my mantra of accepting any form of legal tender, I consider those new regular customers "wins."  Especially since I don't have to do anything to accept it except hit the "pay with Bitcoin" button.

I will not disagree with your views about Bitcoin having morally dubious beginnings.  But criminals also use cash, credit cards, debit cards and more.  There is nothing that humans can dream up to barter with that criminals don't exploit.  Your logic can also apply to computers and the word-wide web.  If our only basis for any business decision is whether or not it is used by criminals and terrorists, then I'm not sure how we would do business at all.  That, however, is my view.

To your last point, Amen! That is why I do not have Bitcoin wallets -- either personally or for my business.  That is why, when I accept Bitcoin transactions, I am very happy that Square automatically converts those to USD on the spot, takes out the minimal 1% fee rather than the approximately 3% card fee I'm paying, and gives me the rest in my transfer in USD.  I want nothing to do with such volatility.  Yes, I have stocks, bonds and other such investments and those are volatile.  However those are much more stable over the long term that Bitcoin has proven to be so far.  If Square did not immediately convert Bitcoin payments to USD, I would not enable this, either.  But, they do, thankfully.