How to Accept Cryptocurrency Payments on Your Website | Step-by-Step Guide
Accepting cryptocurrency payments has become increasingly popular in recent years, with businesses seeking to offer their customers more payment options and a hedge against inflation caused by central banks printing more money. In this article, we’ll show you how to implement cryptocurrency payments on your website using the Coinbase Commerce API.
Why Accept Cryptocurrency Payments?
Accepting cryptocurrency payments provides customers with more payment options, which can help increase sales and improve customer satisfaction. Additionally, it can be a hedge against inflation caused by central banks printing more money, as cryptocurrencies are decentralized and not subject to government control.
Who Should Know?
This article is aimed at business owners and developers who are interested in accepting cryptocurrency payments on their website.
Problem
Businesses may not know how to implement cryptocurrency payments on their website, which can limit their ability to offer customers more payment options.
Solution
The Coinbase Commerce API allows businesses to easily implement cryptocurrency payments on their website, providing customers with a variety of payment options.
Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1: Create a Charge
The first thing you’ll need to do is create a charge on Coinbase Commerce. A charge is more like a payment intent and has an amount and description, and can be denominated in US dollars. When a charge is created, it has a lifespan of one hour and Coinbase will monitor the payment networks for a payment to be confirmed on this charge.
Step 2: Set Up a Server Using Firebase Cloud Functions
In order to accept cryptocurrency payments, you’ll need to set up a server that can communicate with Coinbase. Firebase Cloud Functions is a great option for setting up a server quickly and easily.
Step 3: Enable CORS
To make requests to your server from a frontend application, you’ll need to enable Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS).
Step 4: Create a Charge on Coinbase
Once you’ve set up your server and enabled CORS, you can create a charge on Coinbase using the Coinbase Commerce API.
Step 5: Set Up a Webhook Handler to Verify Event Data from Coinbase
To listen to webhooks from Coinbase and verify event data, you’ll need to set up a webhook handler on your server.
Tips and Tricks
- Store metadata to reference the user in the future.
- Validate the signature of webhooks to ensure they’re from Coinbase.
- Use the event data from Coinbase to implement your own business logic.
Conclusion
Accepting cryptocurrency payments can provide businesses with more payment options and can be easily implemented using the Coinbase Commerce API. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can start accepting cryptocurrency payments on your website today.