Show HN: Accept Bitcoins on your site

[zabeth24]

A friend(@wolever) and I spent the weekend hacking up a small web app which makes it easy for you to sell digital goods for Bitcoins. Once a customer has clicked the “buy” button, we take care of giving them a unique address, monitoring that address for transactions, then securely notifying your website once a minimum number of confirmations have been received. Oh, ya, and then we send you the Bitcoins :)

The website is here: BitWillet: http://www.bitwillet.com and there is a demo on the front page.

(full disclosure: BitWillet uses the Willet, http://dev.getwillet.com, platform, of which I co-founded)

[geuis]

A good companion for this would be a browser extension that interfaces with the bitcoin network so interactions could be streamlined. The extension does not need to be a bitcoin miner, simply an interface for your existing account(s).

The usage pattern would follow:

1) Install the extension

2) Configure extension with your bitcoin address(es).

When encountering a site using bitwillet:

1) User clicks "Pay"

2) bitwillet overlay appears with generated bitcoin address to send payment to. bitcoin address is clickable.

3a) Clicking the bitwillet address interfaces with the bitcoin extension to send the payment from your account to the one provided by bitwillet. A "Are you sure?" confirmation should appear before the transaction is complete.

3b) Alternatively, the overlay interfaces directly with the extension and bypasses the need for the user to click the bitwillet address. Confirmation screen should still be used.

4) bitwillet overlay updates its text to tell the user the transaction is in process.

5) When the transaction is complete, the overlay message changes again to inform the user.

[zabeth24 → geuis]

It's a good idea that would take quite a bit more work on our part. We'll discuss it and see what happens! Thanks!

[alx]

That's really great!

Some feedback:

- "This may take up to 5 minutes." < you might have to explain why - "What is BitWillet?" open a new tab instead of opening inside the popup

[maushu → alx]

Ow, and I thought those 10 seconds it sometimes takes using a credit card was bad.

[zabeth24 → maushu]

This may take up to 5 minutes due to how the Bitcoin network is implemented. We have to wait for the correct number of confirmations to propagate through the Bitcoin network in order to be able to confirm a BTC transaction has occurred.

Wish we could do it faster, but this is as fast as it gets!

[wolever → zabeth24]

Also, I believe that if you've got port forwarding setup correct/your Bitcoin client isn't behind a firewall the confirmations will get out faster because you'll be able to connect to a larger number of peers (eg, without port forwarding setup I usually have ~8 connections, while with port forwarding I get ~100).

[wolever → maushu]

Ya, this is one of the things that bugs me most about Bitcoin… And there isn't really any way to “fix” it apart from accepting a transaction after a smaller number of confirmations.

[rlpb → wolever]

You could have trusted third party intermediaries. If someone pays through one of those, and you receive through one of those, then it could be made instant.

Another reason to have Bitcoin banks?

[adrianwaj]

I'm glad you did this. http://bitcoinservice.co.uk/ has been doing something similar but without the polished look and feel, and higher fees.

The big money in e-goods is with these guys http://www.clickbank.com

[nicksergeant]

Doesn't work for people using an Apps account:

Oops... you need a Google profile to use this feature. Google Profiles is not available for your organization.

[zabeth24 → nicksergeant]

I bet your App Admin can set this up for you to allow it access. I don't know 100%, but I'd recommend checking it out.

[brk]

Thanks, I will probably use this. I have been thinking about offering bitcoin-paid server colo options.

[wolever → brk]

Cool. If you end up using it, we'd love to hear about it (@wolever/@BarbaraEMac).

[dreamdu5t]

I don't get it. How do you make money? Why spend all this time and effort without reward?

[zabeth24 → dreamdu5t]

It won't be free forever.

Once we know how well it works and we've ironed out any bugs, then we'll start charging. Initially we'd rather deal with people who don't trust us because we're free than people who are pissed off because we aren't free and don't work :P

Also, it was a fun project to work on - we had to learn all about the Bitcoin API and host our own daemon!

[iambot]

clickable: http://www.bitwillet.com

[chrislas]

Sent this to a friend who was just looking for something like this!

[zabeth24 → chrislas]

Thanks! Do they have Twitter? I'd love to chat with them about it. Looking for feedback on the project too!

[vgurgov]

Please send 0.001 BTC to 1Gauo5b1X42wGjmpjt4QBDjiaURUPJGaGM.

Please remove . (dot)

[swishercutter]

This is exactly what I needed...Thanks.

[mrmang]

i support this project :) wish more people started using bitcoin