BTCPay Server still rely on fiat, we need your help to fix it
As some of my BTCPay users know, I am very dedicated to make it as simple as possible to anyone to accept Bitcoin with or without Lightning Network. (And also a bunch of altcoins)
BTCPay Server does not sacrifice ease of use against flexibility. If you are a technical person, you are able to easily use the docker deployment for your need on any host that you want.
However, what I want to focus now is User experience of a non technical user interested into running BTCPay Server with lightning network support.
If you don’t use lightning network, and you are not a technical guy, the easiest is to use one of the existing BTCPay server host.
If you want lightning network support, you have no choice but to have your own BTCPay instance. So if you are not a technical user, you need to:
- Open a Microsoft Azure account
- Buy a domain name
- Use the one click setup
- Direct your domain name to your server
It seems I reached the point where the point painful steps are Opening a Microsoft Azure account and buying a domain name.
Pain 1: Opening a Microsoft Azure account
This one is the biggest pain. And I am not even talking about the pain that some of you experience when you give your credit card number to what you consider the personification of evil.
I came in japan in 2015, and I did not had any credit card, only debit card access is possible for foreigners in Japan. (Maybe more if you lived here for 10 years, working for reputable company and is married)
Except Microsoft Azure did not accepted any of my cards. And if one was accepted, it would suddenly stop working after 1 or 2 months… Wished we got an easy to use payment mechanism which can’t block me… oh wait.
So long story short. Non technical users are prevented to use BTCPay if they don’t have proper access to the banking system. A popular cloud provider like AWS probably have the same crap.
This mean that as far as my hyperbitcoinization aim is concerned, BTCPay need to support a one-click deploy on some Host Providers which accept payment in Bitcoin. If you are already one or know one and you are open to collaborate, please let me know!
Pain 2: Buying a domain name
Buying a domain is the same pain. I am using Gandi.NET, they are awesome. Sadly they are using Bitpay which prevent most bitcoiners to use their wallets.
So it means that you still need Credit Card to buy your domain name. (It might be helpful if somebody can contact past their support guy to complain about it)
So if you work for a domain registrar and is willing to accept Bitcoin with a proper payment processor, please let me know. I can even help you freely with my time to set things up, if it means I have an easy way for my BTCPay users to pay their domain name.
The ideal User Experience
What I am hoping, with proper collaboration of registar and hosting providers is to have a way for users to pay both their own BTCPay hosting + Their domain name to the same company in Bitcoin.
I can’t do this by myself, but this is a business opportunity I hope some hosting provider or domain registrars might be willing to take. I will do anything necessary to bring the barrier of adoption lower, I will do my best so we have a proper bitcoin closed-loop economy in place for hosting BTCPay.
