Bitcoin mining company GoMining is making a push into digital payments, launching a merchant payments platform designed to let businesses accept and settle transactions entirely in Bitcoin.
The move comes as a strategy that sets GoMining apart from established players like Jack Dorsey’s Square.
The company unveiled a software development kit (SDK) and application programming interfaces (API) for its new payment protocol, GoBTC Pay, on Friday. The tools are intended to help merchants integrate bitcoin payments into their businesses while receiving funds directly in BTC rather than automatically converting them into traditional currencies.
How is the service different?
GoMining’s model is different from many of today’s crypto payment solutions, which often allow customers to pay in bitcoin but pay merchants in fiat.
One of the most prominent examples is Square, the payments business owned by Block. Its Bitcoin payment service allows customers to pay in BTC via the Lightning Network, but by default converts those payments to U.S. dollars before they reach the retailer. Merchants can choose to hold bitcoin instead, but the default experience is fiat-centric.
GoMining expects more and more companies will want to hold bitcoin directly.
“Our idea isn’t to squeeze bitcoin into the old fiat experience and lose what makes it bitcoin along the way,” GoMining CEO Mark Zalan said in an interview conducted over Telegram.
“It’s to solve the real problems with BTC payments, the high and variable fees, the slow and unpredictable settlement, while preserving non-custody and on-chain finality,” he added.
The company’s payment system is built around the idea that Bitcoin can function as both a payment method and a settlement asset, without requiring intermediaries to convert transactions into government-issued currencies.
According to GoMining, GoBTC Pay settles transactions directly on the Bitcoin blockchain using the company’s Stratum V2 mining protocol. Settlements are expected to take an average of about 12 hours, with fees of 0.2 percent.
The fees will be split evenly between participating wallet providers and bitcoin miners, incentivising both to support the payment network.
The company will begin with a limited rollout targeting an initial group of 10 merchants as it rolls out the service.
GoMining and Square bet on different futures for Bitcoin payments
The plan pits GoMining against Square and other crypto payment providers, but the two strategies suggest different visions for how Bitcoin should be used in commerce.
Today, most payment platforms are designed with the convenience of merchants in mind, shielding them from Bitcoin’s price volatility. Customers can pay with BTC, but retailers get local currency, removing the risk of market fluctuations.
GoMining, on the other hand, is targeting companies comfortable holding bitcoin as part of their treasury strategy or day-to-day operations.
The company says merchants who ultimately want fiat currency can convert their bitcoin themselves rather than the payment processor doing it automatically for them.
The launch is also indicative of a larger trend within the crypto industry of companies looking back to bitcoin’s original use case as a peer-to-peer payment system.
Bitcoin has grown into a more recognised store of value or “digital gold,” but technological improvements and second layer payment solutions have reignited interest in using the cryptocurrency for everyday transactions.
Block has been one of the most active companies in that effort. Co-founder Jack Dorsey has long championed bitcoin as a global native currency and the company has slowly expanded its bitcoin offerings across mining, wallets and merchant payments.
GoMining takes a somewhat different approach, emphasising direct, on-chain settlement and non-custodial payments, rather than automatic conversion to fiat.
Whether merchants will embrace that model remains to be seen. Accepting bitcoin exposes businesses to price volatility but also allows them to hold an asset many investors and companies see as a long-term store of value.
For GoMining, that might make the trade-off a selling point instead of a negative. More companies are viewing bitcoin as more than just a speculative asset, and the company is betting that some merchants will embrace accepting payment in cryptocurrency, rather than just another way to pay in dollars.
