BTCPay Server is a free and open-source cryptocurrency payment processor which allows you to receive payments in Bitcoin (on-chain and via the Lightning Network) and altcoins directly, with no fees, transaction cost or a middleman.

BTCPay is a non-custodial invoicing system which eliminates the involvement of a third-party. Payments with BTCPay go directly to your wallet, which increases the privacy and security. Your private keys are never required to receive payments to your BTCPay Server. There is no address re-use since each invoice uses a new address for receiving payments to your wallet.

BTCPay server is a feature-rich software with plenty of use-cases that can solve problems for different types of users. Merchants, content creators, lightning network users, exchanges, hosting providers and many others can find it useful.

The most significant advantage of BTCPay over other processors is that it is entirely free and open-source, non-custodial software, created by the community. While most of the other processors hold your Bitcoins, BTCPay allows you to receive payments P2P, directly to your software or hardware wallet.

BTCPay is a self-hosted software. This means that you are your own payment processor. There are no subscriptions, no transaction fees. There’s no third-party involvement which significantly increases the censorship-resistance, privacy, and security for you and your customers. Furthermore, BTCPay enables you to become a processor yourself, so that you can offer different packages and help spread the adoption locally or globally.

With BTCPay, you are your own bank.

You can use BTCPay even if you don’t have an e-commerce store. You can launch your BTCpay and be the payment processor for your friends or local market. Another use-case is to accept donations through the POS (Point of Sale) app or payment buttons which can be copy-pasted as HTML snippets into any website.

WooCommerce

Shopify

Drupal

Magento

PrestaShop

Custom Integration

Yes, you can. While various e-commerce CMS use integrations, you can use BTCPay even if you’re not a merchant.

BTCPay is an open-source project. It is not a company; there is no e-mail, live-chat or phone support. The software relies on a network of contributors and users to provide support.If you encountered an issue or have a feature request, please open an issue on GitHub. For more general questions, join community on Mattermost.

BTCPay Server has an internal wallet which you can use to view incoming and outgoing associated Bitcoin transactions and spend your funds.

It works like any other wallet, but has enhanced privacy features (non-custodial, no third-parties, verified with your server’s dedicated full node, etc.) by default and also solves certain UX problems you may encounter when using an existing wallet with BTCPay Server. It also includes many other wallet features such as custom transaction labelling, blockchain explorer links, transaction confirmation status, etc. It can be connected with many different external wallet types and even server generated hot wallets. For these reasons, it’s recommended to use the internal wallet for the most flexible and best wallet experience in BTCPay Server.

Private keys are not required for using BTCPay with an existing wallet. The fact that BTCPay Server does not require access to your master private key for on-chain transactions is a huge security advantage. Even if your server gets hacked, your funds from the on-chain transactions are always safe. Securing your on-chain funds comes down to securing your wallet (opens new window). Using an existing wallet with BTCPay Server only requires the public key from your wallet.

BTCPay Server includes an important feature which eliminates the known privacy issue of address re-use. It does this by providing a new address each time an invoice is requested for payment. This is all done automatically and the merchant does not need to keep track of which addresses belong to which wallet, store, etc. BTCPay Server organizes all the payment information in a detailed invoicing system for the merchant.

The way it works is fairly simple. Merchants connect a wallet to each of their stores that they want to receive payments to. The invoices produced for store payments are linked directly to the merchant’s connected wallet. The invoice addresses are derived from the xpubkey (opens new window) of the wallet associated with the store. The software only needs your extended public key of a wallet to produce new addresses for each payment. These addresses are monitored by BTCPay Server as they move through the blockchain. The status of the payments to those addresses are detailed in the merchant’s invoice page for each store.

Re-using an address for receiving payments is a privacy issue. Providing a different address manually to each customer is not an optimal solution. Imagine having to send a unique e-mail to everyone that wants to pay you with cryptocurrency.

BTCPay solves the address re-use issue. It automates the checkout process for the merchant by creating a new invoice with a unique address created from the merchant’s wallet, each time a customer pays using BTCPay. If you are using an integration with an e-commerce store, BTCPay Server integrates into your checkout process, and customers can pay you in Bitcoin or altcoins in a few clicks, just like any other traditional payment option.

After a customer makes a payment, the BTCPay Server software notifies your store that the order has been paid/completed. Depending on the e-commerce software you’re using, it can also change the order status. All you have to worry about is getting items shipped, leave the invoicing and payment processing to BTCPay.

Apps are features you can use to expand the use case of your BTCPay.

Apps are added on the store level. To create one, you need to have a store already setup. There is no limit to the number of apps that can be assigned to a store.

You can use our Point of Sale (PoS) app. When you create a PoS app within BTCPay Server, it will be publicly accessible via a URL where checkout buttons for products you’ve created for your PoS will be displayed. To have a physical PoS, the easiest solution (currently) is to create a PoS App in BTCPay and display it on any web device such as a phone, tablet or pc.

To create your first store, go to > Stores from the header menu and click “create a new store.”

There’s no limit on a number of stores you can create in BTCPay.