Accept Bitcoin payments with Coinbase Commerce
Should I accept Bitcoin and Lightning payments with Coinbase Commerce in my online store?
Coinbase is one of the leading companies in the cryptocurrency sector and offers numerous other products in addition to a crypto exchange, such as the Coinbase Crypto Wallet for private individuals to pay with cryptocurrencies and Coinbase Commerce, a solution for online stores that want to accept payments with cryptocurrencies.
YouTube: Accept Bitcoin with Coinbase Commerce
On the German YouTube channel of Coincharge and Coinpages we have published a video with the title: Accepting Bitcoin payments with Coinbase Commerce.
If you operate an online store based on WooCommerce or Shopify, you can integrate Coinbase Commerce as a payment method in your online store.
Now Donald Trump has announced that he will also accept donations in crypto and this will be processed via Coinbase Commerce.
This gives us the opportunity to take a look at how payment processing works with Coinbase Commerce.
Payment at a Coinbase Commerce merchant
On Donald Trump’s donation page, the donor has the option of selecting a donation amount and must then disclose a great deal of information about themselves personally.
This would not be necessary for a cryptocurrency payment, but the campaign team would probably like to have the donors’ data for other purposes.
We don’t care, because we can also enter Mickey Mouse data here.
You will then be asked from which wallet you would like to pay as a customer.
Otherwise, you are used to being shown a QR code that you can then use to pay from your wallet.
This is not possible for online stores that use Coinbase Commerce.
As a payer, you must use either a Coinbase wallet or the Metamask wallet.
Anyone who has the Coinbase wallet can then pay with any cryptocoin they have on their Coinbase wallet.
If you have Bitcoin in your Coinbase wallet, you can pay with it as well as with Ethereum, Solana, Dogecoin and all ERC-20 tokens.
The entire payment process at Coinbase Commerce is as follows for the payer:
Payment with Bitcoin Lightning is not possible. Coinbase has integrated Lightning into its exchange, but not into Coinbase Commerce.
The credit as a merchant is not in Bitcoin, but in US dollar stablecoin from Circle, namely as USDC.
Conclusion: Coinbase Commerce
Can we recommend online merchants to offer their customers payment via Coinbase Commerce? The answer is a clear no.
Why you should not use Coinbase Commerce in your online store.
If you want to offer your customers the option of paying with cryptocurrency in your online store, there are three things you should bear in mind.
Firstly, a simple payment process for the payer. This is not guaranteed with Coinbase Commerce. The payment process differs from the usual QR code process. To avoid customers abandoning their purchases at the checkout, nothing should be used that complicates the payment process or confuses the payer.
Secondly, Coinbase Commerce does not support payments via Bitcoin Lightning.
Thirdly, Coinbase Commerce forces payers to use the in-house Coinbase wallet.
This means that only those who have a Coinbase wallet can pay at an online merchant.
You cannot pay with other wallets. It may be interesting for Coinbase that the entire payment process runs via its own infrastructure and that it has a complete overview of every single transaction.
Every merchant and payer can imagine for themselves what this means for data protection.
Coinbase is one of the most important companies in the crypto space thanks to its size and prominence. Like Bitpay, Coinbase is trying to build a closed system and establish itself as a standard.
If you want to offer Bitcoin payments in the form of onchain and Lightning in your online store, you should use a provider other than Bitpay and Coinbase Commerce,
There are now numerous providers that offer a better solution. One example of this is Coinsnap. With the discount code Coincharge you can save 0.25 percentage points on fees.
You can find more providers on our page “The 12 most important Bitcoin payment providers“.
