Bitnet, an enterprise bitcoin payments processor, today announced that they have selected BlockCypher, a blockchain web services company, as a key data provider to help Bitnet mitigate the risk for merchants in accepting bitcoin payments.
Bitnet’s new ‘Instant Approval’ service addresses the challenge faced by merchants of waiting for bitcoin transactions to be confirmed on the blockchain. This process can take over an hour if merchants require guarantees from their payment processor that transactions will be settled.
Drawing on the long industry experience of their team in managing online payment risk for merchants, Bitnet has built a solution that calculates the probability of whether a bitcoin transaction will ultimately confirm on the blockchain. Significantly, Bitnet takes financial liability for that decision. The ‘Instant Approval’ service relies on a number of data points, crucial to which are BlockCypher’s double-spend detection and transaction propagation metrics.
The new ‘Instant Approval’ service enables merchants to accept bitcoin within their existing checkout flows that are typically built around accepting card payments, where authorizations that guarantee funds are provided within seconds.
“We are delighted to work with Bitnet,” said Catheryne Nicholson, CEO at BlockCypher. “Their expertise in the intricacies of enterprise payments can unlock bitcoin’s potential in very large-scale industries that experience a high volume of chargebacks.”
“One of the biggest challenges for merchants wanting to accept bitcoin is how to accommodate the delayed confirmation times into their ‘real-time’ checkout flows and still be assured of being funded,” said Seamus Cushley, VP Product at Bitnet. “We partnered with BlockCypher to provide key data for our ‘Instant Approval’ service due to their best-in-class metrics and enterprise service.”
The two companies have been collaborating for the last six months to make this deal happen. It’s an example of the philosophy both companies share of working together to collectively further the Bitcoin ecosystem, also echoed in Bitnet’s core values: “If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel together. Let’s do this together.”