Registrars and merchants accept Bitcoin without currency risk — How domain

A number of firms make it easier to accept digital currencies with reduced risk.

I’ve always wondered how firms like Overstock.com and NameCheap.com accept bitcoin payments while avoiding the risk of an exchange dying (e.g. Mt. Gox) and currency fluctuations.

I got the answer the prior week when I ran in to Jessica Besseling at DomainFest.

Besseling formerly worked for DomainSponsor and DDC.com, and now she’s Sr. Director of Business Development for GoCoin.

GoCoin is a payment gateway for merchants to accept currencies counting bitcoin, litecoin, and dogecoin. Following a merchant integrates the service, they can then accept these payment options along with their normal options. GoCoin converts the payments to “real” currencies and transfers them to the merchants’ bank accounts daily.

One benefit to merchants is obvious: it expands the client base. It also turns out it’s a lot less expensive than credit card processing fees.

GoCoin is certainly not the first firm in this space. A quick Google search turns up BitPay and CoinBase.

I would imagine these types of services will make it easier for domain registrars (and even escrow services?) to accept these fresh currencies.