I'm a merchant. How do I accept ZEC?

General Education
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Hi. I’m a merchant/charity. I heard about Zcash. I love what you’re doing! People are asking to pay me ZEC! What should I do?

I would like to accept ZEC payments
online
at my physical point of sale

I want to get the money
as ZEC kept in my Zcash wallet
converted to USD in my bank account

I need the payment transactions
linked to customer identity
linked to specific orders
no linking, just tell me when a payment is confirmed

To accept payments, I can
display an unchanging QR code
add a snippet of HTML to my website
manually use a web browser
manually use an Android phone app
manually use an iOS phone app
run Linux software
run Mac software
run Windows software
just integrate my current payment processing with some suitable external service, I don’t know the details

My existing payment processing system(s) are:
a cash box
PayPal
Square
AnyPay
…

I’m under the following regulatory jurisdiction:
USA (other than New York)
New York
EU
…
Other

Can you give me some simple instructions? What should I do, or who should I talk to?

P.S. I don’t know much about cryptocurrencies. Also, I’m busy running a business, so I can spend maybe 30 minutes settings things up and learning how to use it.

(Asking for a friend. And my local coffee shop. And a charity I support. And my Internet radio station. And everyone else that I transact with.)

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There’s Zatsuma… PM me & I’ll help you get it running (even though I know you could figure it out) :slight_smile:

Actually…that’s a good reminder, I need to get Zatsuma working with the new light wallet instead of a full node.

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What’s Zatsuma? (Neither Google nor @Shawn’s exchanges webpage know about it.)

Which of the above ☐ cases does it address?

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Zcash point-of-sale :slight_smile:

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Zatsuma was the name chosen for the Zcash-point-of-sale that was funded through ZFGrants

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Thinking about this - I bet aditya could incorporate zatsuma into a light wallet with view keys. That would be way better.

Edit: Thinking of it like this :-
Funds go to a cold (paper) wallet - the shop owner controls this wallet
IVK for cold wallet imported into a light wallet (phone app) - used by shop workers
All the light wallet can do is show QR codes for new orders & handle txn notifications

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Oh, of course! :laughing: I should have Googled for “Zatsuma Zcash”…
@Shawn, maybe add Zatsuma to yours wallets list?
@adityapk00, please see @ChileBob’s idea above.

So Zatsuma addresses the case of
:ballot_box_with_check: at my physical point of sale
:ballot_box_with_check: as ZEC kept in my Zcash wallet
:ballot_box_with_check: no linking, just tell me when the payment is confirmed
:ballot_box_with_check: Linux
right?

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Yup, thats it :roll_eyes: varchar(20)

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These are not really answers to your questions. Sorry.

Your questions very succinctly describe the problems as I see them. Each of those boxes needs to be tickable in various ways. for both t and z addrs. - (leading to a whole new problem involving view keys and z2z)

For the outlined usecases I see the hardest part as merchant security.

Each usecase for a merchant needs a much higher level of authority than me paying you. This is why cash works so well for person to person stuff but cards/transfers are better for high value. (and they give the much needed paper trail the govt likes so it can tax people and provide the buyer some protection from dodgy companies and not having to carry 10k in cash around to buy stuff)

Merchants also face the issue of high volume fraud. something I dont have to worry about too much. mainly because I know 90% of merchants in high risk businesses (coffee shops, bars, super markets) have methods for checking cash is not fake. - so if the business isnt dodgy then I shouldnt get fake notes. - cash is the high velocity medium in most countries.

Which usecases get priority? I am not sure. currently zcash is a niche thing and so the userbase has a high technical level already. I think solving the problems for merchant adoption in meatspace will lead to solutions for cyberspace (its blade runner month, cut me some slack)

This doesnt answer your question. It leads to more questions. I think one unifying solution that can be called something like “zcash payment systems” which is almost plug and play. is what should be strived for.

I think specifying this further and then solving it will take time and collaboration. I am up for it, if you are. I have experience in traditional merchant fintech and emerging fintech. (not crypto related) and much less with merchant crypto adoption, because of the crossover I can see the problems and the opportunities, I just lack enthusiasm for them by myself. - I prefer the red/black side

I like the way you are trying to solve this so I am more than willing to offer any assistance I can.

Maybe continue this via PM? - If you can structure the grant application I can fill out the details and provide full references for our ability to do the work (mist). Or I (steve) could just help out for free. again not sure which approach is best.

@shawn does discourse have the functionality for a “groups” function or sub forum? where people can post stuff like this and others can hash out ideas without the ideas being fully public? So public threaded replies where only some people can see some of the responses. but most is public.

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There are some multi currency payment processors,

I think these cover
:ballot_box_with_check: Online
:ballot_box_with_check: In person

:ballot_box_with_check: Keep zec
:ballot_box_with_check: Convert to $

:ballot_box_with_check: Link to orders
:ballot_box_with_check: Link to customer name

:ballot_box_with_check: Any platform with a browser

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@amiller: CoinPayments and CoinGate look very nice, powerful and feature-rich! Yes they cover many of the cases.

My worry is that for someone with a very simple use case like “free donations to my website” or “accept payments at my market stall”, these websites are intimidating, with numerous options that are mostly irrelevant.

It takes a lot of effort and knowledge to understand which of the 7 payment processors listed in @Shawn’s merchant services list is even applicable to one’s needs, and what terms or webpage to look at within that provider’s sprawling website.

Just an example, let’s take a simple reader-supported website, which already accepts payments by credit card. If you tell ask them to support ZEC and send them into the woods to explore options and wade through scary technical documentation, it just won’t be worth their time (or, often, the experts they’d need to hire to even understand this stuff).

So, imagine you could instead just send them to a webpage that’s tailored for their use case, and tells them:

You can accept donations in ZEC, and have them deposited into your bank account. To do so on your website, you’ll need to put a snippet of HTML code in your website, which will show a donation button that takes visitors to a payment processor’s web page. You’ll also need to set up an account with the payment processor, providing your identity and telling them where to deposit the funds.

Payment processors which offer this service include: SuperPay’s “pay button” feature (link), MetaMerchant’s “embedded webpay” feature (link) and Coinimoney’s “clickTOpay” service (link).

For help, you can post on the Zcash discussion forum (link) or contact merchant-adoption-helpers@z.cash.

Goal: anyone who wants to accept ZEC payments would be able to understand within 5 minutes what that entails, and if their use case is simple enough, would be able to complete the process within 30 minutes.

The Zfnd grant opportunities I see here are:

  1. Identify important gaps in the coverage of use cases, and build payment solutions that address these.

  2. Build and update a website that keeps track of the available solutions, and explains them in a friendly and focused way (as in the above example). This may be presented as a bunch of static pages for the most important scenarios, or even as an actual questionnaire that filters things down to relevant options and ties them together with good explanations.

BTW, I’m updating the checklist in the original post as I’m learning more from this discussion and links.

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Okay, so how do I apply for a grant the right way? would some people mind helping me? - the zfnd can own all the research and do what it wants with it.

We tried doing things our way last time and it ended in nothing.

In fairness this was probably my mistake, and not understanding the grant process. I treated it more like a bounty program, which is what this requirement to me seems to be, more of a bounty than a grant proposal.

Some handholding would be nice.

We/I would like to do the most productive/useful work that ends up with something that works as required.

This is a really good idea. If someone does this and wants help with the donkey work, let me know.

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how do I apply for a grant the right way

Figure out which new payment system (or components) you want to build. In your proposal, explain why there’s a need for it and how it differs from prior ones. Then explain how you’ll execute it.

@sonya at Zfnd is working on how-to guide, but meanwhile see the current grant program description page and the “Structure of the Submission” in the old grant program. And just look at good examples like @aviral and @prastut’s Zcash Service Status Dashboard, or @adityapk00 ZecWallet Desktop Light Client

I treated it more like a bounty program

The biggest difference between Zfnd grant program and bounty programs are:

  • You, the proposer, choose the goals and the success criteria and bounty amount and schedule. You can tailor it to what you’re good at and like doing! But you need to convince people that it’s worth it.
  • You also you need to explain your approach in advance, and convince people that you’re likely to succeed in achieving it.
  • In exchange for doing this upfront work, you’re given exclusivity. Within the allotted timeframe, others can’t scoop you and claim the bounty you worked so hard to define.

(@sonya, maybe this would be helpful in a FAQ somewhere?)

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Since we have grants, would that be a great case for a grant request?

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Yes it would, this would be a good fit for the requests feature! It’s meant for community ideas.

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A response I got from a merchant today:

“To answer your question why ZEC was discontinued by us: We wanted to maintain at least a single anonymous payment option and since our IT guy had issues setting up ZEC zero-knowledge address, so we’ve switched to Monero payments.”

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One wonders how hard the IT guy tried :thinking:

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How to Accept Zcash Payments
https://paywithz.cash/acceptzcash

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nice! I also added a link to paywithz.cash on the sidebar of the main site :wink:

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I saw you made a Keybase forum as well, do you mind if I link to it in the sidebar as well? Do you have a link to use?

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