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Quick guide for your small merchant friend

@Car you asked @k00b in the last SNL what solutions are available today for a small merchant (coffee stall) to being able to accept Bitcoin quickly, without any hassle.
So what I suggest is the following scenario.
  • keep it simple in the beginning, don't over-complicate things for a newbie. Let them discover step by step all the solutions available and that way they will learn more.
  • inform them about the differences between custodial and non-custodial solutions. Sometimes a custodial solution could be useful as a decoy for receiving payments (as I explained in this guide). Withdrawing periodically from a custodial account is strongly recommended. A non-custodial solution sometimes involve more knowledge and capital allocation.
  • depending on each merchant business profile, recommend the more suitable solution for them, not for your taste. Your usual BTC/LN wallet maybe is not the perfect way for a merchant, so try to put yourself in their situation and how they operate.
Here I would list some solutions that can be used (I tested myself):
  1. CoinOS - web wallet (Tor supported), PWA supported, custodial / non-custodial, integrated swaps, PoS, LNURL, LN Address, onchain / LN payments, no KYC, fully anonymous.
  2. IBEX Pay - web and mobile wallet, custodial, swaps, PoS, LNURL, web lightning merchant page, API, here is a very good video tutorial and more tutorials on their webpage
  3. Blink Wallet - custodial, LN address, PoS webpage (very good for employees), merchants map, circles, easy to use, open source developed by Galoy team.
  4. LifPay - custodial, LN address, Lightning page, easy to use, no KYC
  5. LightningTipBot - custodial Telegram LN bot used with Zeus or Bluewallet app, LNURL, LN address, many other features
  6. Alby - custodial browser extension, LNURL, LN address, can be imported into Zeus and Bluewallet app and used as a regular LN wallet.
  7. Phoenix / Breez / Electrum mobile wallet - non-custodial, opening channels fees involved, swaps out are needed to empty the inbound channels and be ready for the next day.
  8. Blixt / Zeus / Mutiny - non-custodial, full mobile LN node (neutrino), LN address, channels management, LSP, swaps out are needed to empty the inbound channels and be ready for the next day.
  9. Nodeless - semi-custodial, auto-widrawals to your own wallets / LN address, full set of features for merchants with seamless integration into webshops, solution based on BTCPay server.
  10. Use an "uncle Jim" Lightning Bank, as I explained in this guide - we need more skilled node runners to play the role of a "uncle Jim" LN bank for their local community and offer these semi-trusted solutions.
  11. Bitcoinize - nice PoS machines, connected to many funding sources, NFC enabled, printing receipts.
I hope this quick guide will help you with your local small merchant friend.
Thanks for this! I’ll show him this list this week when I see him.
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Is this in order of preference, would you say?
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no. The order is random, how I just remember the solutions.
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