My Experience Accepting Crypto Payments For The First Time

[Zwielicht]

At the risk of sounding like an old man who's out of touch with the world, I'm not particularly well-versed in crypto.

However ,since starting this forum, I've begun learning more about cryptocurrency in order to eventually accept it as a payment method for upgrades here.

Now, I knew some things about it and had various cryptocurrencies already, but I had never accepted crypto as a payment nor had I tried using it to buy something until recently.

Accepting Crypto For The First Time
So my first attempt to accept anything was with USDT TRC20, which I believe is something called a "stablecoin" whose value is tied to a fiat currency (in this case, USD).

I'm just going to describe the experience as being odd, but definitely interesting. I was asked for my USDT wallet address, so I sent the one I had for Tron.

But no, no, no; it's not the Tron wallet address I needed nor was it my ERC20 wallet address, but rather my USDT TRC20 wallet address (but I think there was also one for just TRC20?).

So it takes a little while for me to figure this out, and I'm going to blame Ledger Live's set up for that. I sent what seems to be the right address, and the payment was received!

I accepted another transaction after that one as well for the same wallet address, so at least I now have some experience with accepting cryptocurrency as a payment method.

Trying To Buy Something With Crypto For The First Time
So I wanted to buy the new server with crypto as I have enough in there to pay for the servers months in advance. I saw that they accepted TRON TRC20.

I thought, "Hey, I know that one", so I selected that as the invoice option. I'm given the wallet address to send the payment to, so I open up Ledger Live feeling excited to make my first payment.

Disappointment soon hit me when I was greeted with a warning message just before the transaction that said something like, "The SUN doesn't have enough energy! This transaction may cost up to an extra 50TRX".

I looked into this and found out that transactions cost... energy... the you can also rent or something... which sounds like BS. Look, I know there's a reason behind it, but all I could do was make comparisons to end-stage 2020 Angry Birds where after playing for a few levels, the game would stop you from playing with a message like, "Your birds are tired and have no energy, you need to wait 24 hours for them to rest... or you can wake them up with an ENERGY BOOST for 50 Bird Bucks, which you can purchase in the AB store for $5".
I ended up just not buying the server with crypto out of sheer annoyance.

My Thoughts So Far
I see why crypto still isn't really a mainstream thing that every Joe on the street is using, but I kind of like it so far. It makes me feel like a proper outlaw, if you know what I mean.

Overall, it's definitely something I'll keep learning more about, I'm just wondering what other sun energy type of things I'll run into.

Originally posted on my company site Sycosure.

 

[Dopious]

Welcome to the crypto they say is soooo easy to use. It will take another decade for it to go mainstream as there are so much easier ways to get paid or pay.

 

[Zwielicht]

Welcome to the crypto they say is soooo easy to use.

I'll be honest, I felt like an idiot for not being able to work it out right away.

It will take another decade for it to go mainstream as there are so much easier ways to get paid or pay.

Yeah, the initial difficulty of using it and the learning curve is something I can tell would put off a lot regular people.

It also doesn't help that there are a lot of places that treat it as both an investment opportunity like stocks and as a currency. I can see that stablecoins exist to just be currency, but somebody just getting into this isn't going to know that right off the bat. Really though, it just adds to the confusion

 

[Champagne]

Especially the USDT difference can be annoying, as some people/businesses just say: "Oh yeah we accept USDT too.", but when you wanna send them USDT TRC, they just say "No, not USDT TRC20, only USDT ERC20". One thing that I always try to remember is that ERC20 USDT has an address that starts with 0x, as do all other Ethereum-based tokens. TRC20 USDT, on the other hand, has its address starting with 'T'.

 

[t2van]

I'll be honest, I felt like an idiot for not being able to work it out right away.

Yeah, the initial difficulty of using it and the learning curve is something I can tell would put off a lot regular people.

I know what you mean I consider myself 1 point higher than a half-wit the learning curve in sending or receiving the first time is insanely high.

I never understood why some mainstream wallets or trading places don't offer a dummy run or a tutorial thing first you have to run through as well as the bullshit self assessment they added about understanding trading risks. It wouldn't take much to use a fake address with a pass or fail just so you understand what you are doing before you start arsing around with real money.

The first time you start to use it and have the immediate risk of "do it wrong and your money is gone" is a proper nail biter that I'm sure has alienated a ton of would be adapters...

 

[MisterF]

I eventually got into crypto through taking payments. We had clients asking to pay in BTC, then ETH and then Solana so we set up the function. It was something previously people had asked about and I had said no to. But sometimes you got to weigh up the pros and cons and bite the bullet.


Prior to this I had never got my head around crypto, it's an age thing......

But I then bought more BTC and Eth, when these had doubled, I withdrew my initial investments and everything we have there now is pure profit, so play money.

 

[MR.Spuf]

I eventually got into crypto through taking payments. We had clients asking to pay in BTC, then ETH

Same here. I knkew a bit about it but someone asked me to pay in crypto then I never looked back. 60% of my monthly income are from crypto now. There are payment processors, cards, etc.

@Zwielicht maybe a crypto section down the line? I would put some guide for sending, receiving, payment processors, scams to avoid, good practices etc.