Accepting Bitcoin payments on your blog can be a creative and effective way to convince readers to financially support it. However, there are a number of steps that you’ll need to take before your content is ready to be monetized. Let’s take a closer look at what needs to be done to ensure that payments can be made in a convenient and secure manner.
Which Payment Gateway Will You Choose?
Coingate and Bitpay are among the most popular payment gateways for those who are looking to accept Bitcoin from their site visitors. It may also be possible to process Bitcoin payments through Shopify or other eCommerce platforms. When choosing a payment gateway, you should consider variables such as transaction fees and the ease of integrating a particular service with your blog or website.
At some point in the future, you might want to accept digital currencies that a given service provider doesn’t offer by default. Therefore, you will need access to a quality application programming interface (API) that will allow you to add these options manually.
What to Know About Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards
Payment card industry data security standards (PCI DSS) ensure that anyone who contributes to your blog can do so without exposing their sensitive information. To conform with these standards, a payment gateway will typically encrypt data as it is being processed between the sender and the recipient. Companies that handle digital transactions are also required to routinely monitor and test their networks to find vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
Currently, there is no law demanding that you comply with these standards. However, failing to do so could make you liable for any damages that a reader or any other party experiences as a result of your inadequate security measures. Furthermore, you could expose your own account information to hackers or other thieves each time the Bitcoin is converted to fiat currency like INR or transferred to a personal Bitcoin wallet. The use of two-factor authentication (2FA) may also be an effective method of securing online transactions.
Bitcoin Is a Potentially Volatile Currency
It is important to note that the price of a single Bitcoin can rise or fall dramatically over the course of a few hours or days. This is because digital currencies have become more popular in recent years, which has caused a significant spike in trading volume. Therefore, it is generally a good idea to convert any coins that you receive to gold, dollars or other more stable forms of currency every few days. Many payment gateways will allow you to schedule these transfers or conversions hours, days or weeks in advance.
When done properly, allowing Bitcoin transactions on a blog can provide multiple different ways to monetize your content. For instance, you could hide certain posts behind a paywall or ask readers to make custom payments to show their appreciation for your hard work. It may be possible to learn more about the process of monetizing your content by talking to your blog’s web host or your preferred merchant account provider.
