Crypto Payment Gateway: The Winner in 2023

1. Introduction

1.1. Background and Context

• Despite the abundance of Crypto Payment Gateways in the market, many people are unsure how to harness them for their businesses and create an additional revenue channel.

1.2. Objectives

• Outline the standard functionalities of cryptocurrency payments that enable businesses to understand the advantages of Crypto Payment Gateways. Additionally, I will share my perspective on when and how to best utilize them.

2. Research

2.1. Competitors

2.1.1. Ecosystem

+-----+--------------+-----------------------------------+---------------------+-------+-------------------------------------------+-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|  #  |     Name     |                URL                | Integrated Merchant | Audit |            Developer Document             | Global Rank |    License     |                         Services                          |
+-----+--------------+-----------------------------------+---------------------+-------+-------------------------------------------+-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|   1 | CoinsPaid    | https://coinspaid.com/            | > 182               | No    | https://docs.cryptoprocessing.com/        | #1,364,422  | Estonia        | https://pspbox.com/payment-solution/cryptoprocessing-com/ |
|   2 | CoinPayments | https://www.coinpayments.net/     | > 117,000           | No    | https://www.coinpayments.net/apidoc-intro | #66,946     | Lithuania      | https://pspbox.com/payment-solution/coinpayments/         |
|   3 | Cryptomus    | https://cryptomus.com/            |                     | No    | https://doc.cryptomus.com/                | #103,074    | Lithuania      | https://pspbox.com/payment-solution/cryptomus/            |
|   4 | BlockBee     | https://blockbee.io/              |                     | No    | https://docs.blockbee.io/                 | #2,242,708  | No information | https://pspbox.com/payment-solution/blockbee/             |
| 4.1 | CryptAPI     | https://cryptapi.io/              | >18,000             | No    | https://docs.cryptapi.io/                 | #4,228,924  | No Information |                                                           |
|   5 | HayVN        | https://hayvnglobal.com/hayvn-pay |                     | No    | No                                        | #4,426,620  | Cayman         | https://pspbox.com/payment-solution/hayvn/                |
+-----+--------------+-----------------------------------+---------------------+-------+-------------------------------------------+-------------+----------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+

⇒ Winner: It appears that CoinPayments holds an advantage due to its extensive usage among merchants. Nonetheless, its API documentation is lacking in detail and insufficient for developers. On the contrary, CoinsPaid, Cryptomus, and BlockBee(CryptAPI) offer comprehensive documentation tailored for developers.

• One point to consider is that the count of merchants relies on online sources and needs substantiated evidence. Additionally, a single account can establish multiple merchants at will. Consequently, using the number of transactions remains the optimal approach for assessing the performance of all these platforms.

2.1.2. Performance

Each framework employs a uniform mechanism for addressing the most prevalent use cases. Consequently, I refrain from dedicating time to benchmarking these systems. As a result, their performance is satisfactory for most use cases.

⇒ Winner: It’s a draw

2.2. Highlight Features

2.2.1. Register a New Merchant:

CoinsPaid

• Presently, there is an error encountered during the signup process. Although this negatively impacts user experience, it’s worth noting that CoinsPaid is currently in its beta phase and exclusively seems to be available for businesses. Alternatively, you can attempt to submit your information via https://coinspaid.com/contact/.

Cryptomus

• The registration procedure takes less than one minute to complete. The user interface (UI) is visually appealing, and upon signing up, you’ll have access to the Cryptomus dashboard, as showcased in the following image:

CoinPayments

• The registration steps are straightforward. Completing the Know Your Customer (KYC) process is mandatory to initiate full-scale operations. This process is seamlessly integrated with the Sumsub platform.

BlockBee (CryptAPI)

• The registration steps for BlockBee (CryptAPI) are equally uncomplicated.

⇒ Winner: Cryptomus and CoinPayments.

2.2.2. Deposit Flow:

2.2.2.1. User Flow:

• In the context of research, my focus is on a commonly observed scenario: regardless of the type of deposit or transfer made by the user, the resulting amount I will obtain is in traditional currency. To illustrate, I’ve taken EUR as the user’s account balance; in different regions, it could be a different currency. For cryptocurrency endeavors, this might involve USDT, ETH, or any other applicable digital currency. The key point here is to grasp the underlying principles of these payment gateways.

2.2.2.2. Data Flow:

CoinsPaid

• In case you want to specific a currency and deposit amount, CoinsPaid offers a Payment Terminal service that can help you to display your deposit address as a web page or embed it into your website as an i-frame. The rest remains the same.

⇒ Pros:

• It automatically swaps deposited coins/tokens to other cryptocurrencies and FIAT based on the liquidity of CoinBase exchange.
• Powerful CMS.
• There is a sandbox environment.
• The gas fee is the cheapest because user utilize the transfer method.

⇒ Cons:

• It depends on CoinsPaid if you want to add more coins/tokens.
• Users need to use a Crypto Wallet (involves more steps) to deposit coins/tokens.
• Not realtime.
• The price of coins/tokens may change during the lifetime of a deposit form.
• It’s hard to determine which order is linked to a specific payment when using the transfer method, as users might easily input the wrong deposit amount.
• There is no active way to check the payment status in case the WebHook (2.7) does not work as expected.

Cryptomus

• If you wish to specify a currency and deposit amount, replace 2.2 with Creating an invoice.
• If your backend doesn’t receive the callback data at 2.7, calling https://api.cryptomus.com/v1/payment/resend will resend the payment state to the WebHook.

⇒ Pros:

• It automatically swaps deposited coins/tokens to other cryptocurrencies by using auto-convert feature.
• Powerful CMS.
• The gas fee is the cheapest because user utilize the transfer method.

⇒ Cons:

• It depends on Cryptomus if you want to add more coins/tokens.
• Users need to use a Crypto Wallet (involves more steps) to deposit coins/tokens.
• Not realtime.
• to_currency does not yet support the FIAT.
• There is no sandbox environment.
• The price of coins/tokens may change during the lifetime of a deposit form.
• It costs an additional step to exchange the stable coin to FIAT.
• It’s hard to determine which order is linked to a specific payment when using the transfer method, as users might easily input the wrong deposit amount.

CoinPayments

• Regarding CoinPayments, the first point 1. requires an input field for the user. This is a distinguishing factor when compared to other crypto payment gateways. If you aim to make the process seamless, several tasks lie ahead:
• Utilize Callback Address to generate a crypto wallet address for users to deposit into.
• Integrate an exchange function to convert the deposited amount from the user into EUR before adding it to the user’s balance.
• Employ https://www.coinpayments.net/apidoc-convert to change the user’s funds into stable coins prior to the conversion to FIAT. Alternatively, collect the user’s funds into your CEX account and subsequently execute a sell API call to acquire EUR.
• At step 2.7, in case your backend encounters an issue, CoinPayments will make up to 10 retry attempts to send the payment notification.

⇒ Pros:

• It automatically swaps deposited coins/tokens to other cryptocurrencies and FIAT.
• It supports nearly all coins/tokens.
• It supports Litecoin on Testnet for testing purpose.
• The gas fee is the cheapest because user utilize the transfer method.

⇒ Cons:

• Users need to use a Crypto Wallet (involves more steps) to deposit coins/tokens.
• Not realtime.
• The price of coins/tokens may change during the lifetime of a deposit form.
• It’s hard to determine which order is linked to a specific payment when using the transfer method, as users might easily input the wrong deposit amount.

BlockBee(CryptAPI)

• If you wish to request payment transfers from other individuals, simply substitute step 2.1 → 2.4 using Checkout — Payments or Checkout — Deposit. The distinction between these two methods lies in Checkout — Payments having an expiration time.

⇒ Pros:

• It automatically swaps deposited coins/tokens to other cryptocurrencies and FIAT.
• It supports nearly all coins/tokens.
• The gas fee is the cheapest because users utilize the transfer method.

⇒ Cons:

• Users need to use a Crypto Wallet (involves more steps) to deposit coins/tokens.
• Not realtime.
• There is no sandbox environment.
• The price of coins/tokens may change during the lifetime of a deposit form.
• It’s hard to determine which order is linked to a specific payment when using the transfer method, as users might easily input the wrong deposit amount.
• There is no active way to check the payment state in case Callback (2.7) does not work as expected.

3. Lesson Learned

• https://www.okta.com/identity-101/hmac/#:~:text=Hash-based message authentication code,use signatures and asymmetric cryptography.

4. Conclusion

• According to this research, CoinPayments emerges as the winner, boasting a wide range of supported cryptocurrencies and merchant usage.
• Nonetheless, my preference leans towards CoinsPaid, followed by Cryptomus. Both have well-documented resources for developers and are backed by substantial teams behind the scenes.
• For smaller projects, CoinPayments presents the optimal solution. This model is particularly effective for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) seeking to incorporate crypto payments. It incurs no development costs and aligns well with the onramp-offramp approach.
• If you’re looking to establish an e-commerce website on platforms like WooCommerce, Odoo, or OpenCart (within the PHP ecosystem), BlockBee (CrypAPI) and HayVN prove suitable options due to their abundance of integrated components.