1

I have a mobile point of sale app for local businesses. We want to integrate Bitcoin as a new payment processor for our merchants. We currently charge $.30 per transaction for credit card swipes and we want to charge the Bitcoin equivalent. How do we grab a transaction fee for submitting the transactions on the merchants behalf via our app? I mean, how do we do this in Bitcoin? Is there a property in BitPay we can use that says pay this API_Key this fee amount?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Firstly Bitpay and Bitcoin are not the same thing.

BitPay is the Paypal equivalent of the Bitcoin world. You may be able to have a percentage of the transaction for yourself, but you will have to work out the business logic. Can't help you there.

Regarding fees on the Bitcoin network, please note that it is designed to be anti-fee, so if you do add fees you must bring something else to the table, but it sounds like you are setting yourself up as an intermediary between the merchant and Bitpay so I don't know exactly what that might be.

Bitcoin is anti-fee because even it's own transaction fees are subject to minimum payment amounts otherwise the fee is zero.

The Bitcoin Transaction fees themselves are not calculated on the amounts but are a function of the number and size of the inputs and outputs, the size of the transaction in kb and whether or not the person has decided to pay a fixed fee or not.

That being said your merchants will not be happy if you apply a fixed fee to their transactions especially if the transaction amount is less than the fixed fee you want.

Improve this answer
1
  • Thanks, I appreciate your response. We have to charge a fee as that is part of the service we provide. We provide the ability for small merchants to sell their products online and on mobile devices. Our rate is $.25 per transaction instead of the 2+% charged by other companies. It allows people to sell any items they have created to anyone around the world. So, we have to be able to charge a fee to continue hosting, supporting, adding new features, etc. We were just asked about integrating bitcoin, and the best way to do that & convert it to dollars is the bitpay exchange.
    – user12526
    Jan 23, 2014 at 21:43

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.