Namecheap now officially accepts Bitcoin

https://www.namecheap.com/support/payment-options/bitcoin.aspx

by redegg • 13 years ago

329 172 13 years ago

kalleboo3• 13 years ago

Looks like they're using BitPay https://bitpay.com

edit: I just tried it. The workflow works well, but this brings me back to my biggest reservation about the usability of BitCoin for regular transactions: The long period (hours) to confirm a transaction.

mwsherman• 13 years ago

Hours to settle into $? Or hours to confirm the Bitcoin transaction at all?

kalleboo3• 13 years ago

To confirm the Bitcoin transaction at all. That's just how Bitcoin works - you have to wait for X new blocks to get confirmations from other peers. How long you wait determines your risk level.

ashamedlion2• 13 years ago

I'm loving this Bitcoin ramp up over the past few weeks. Namecheap should be applauded for their general endorsement of "what's good for the internet". Of course it's in their best interest, but you don't see GoDaddy doing the same.

I think back to the "So, that's the end of Bitcoin"[1] article by Forbes and chuckle to myself. Hopefully one day we can look back at that article in the same way we look back at Ballmer laughing at the iPhone [2]

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/06/20/so-thats-...

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

invalidOrTaken• 13 years ago

Second that on Namecheap apparently being on the side of the internet. Weren't they a vocal opponent of SOPA?

ashamedlion2• 13 years ago

Yep

http://community.namecheap.com/blog/2011/12/22/we-say-no-to-...

http://www.namecheap.com/moveyourdomainday.aspx

http://community.namecheap.com/blog/2012/01/18/blackout/

geekam• 13 years ago

Yes they were. Made me move all my domains to namecheap.

michaelkscott• 13 years ago

Chiming in here to say that I moved all my domains from GoDaddy to Namecheap, too. Fantastic service so far.

Achshar• 13 years ago

As far as I remember, they gave a discount to people moving from godaddy and even provided a tool to assist them move. Of course it was in their best interest.

foxylad• 13 years ago

A domain registrar is going to have a fairly technically literate customer base, but bitcoin is edging towards the mainstream faster than I'd expected.

davidroberts• 13 years ago

I think in five years, the idea of using credit or debit cards for electronic transactions will seem slightly ridiculous, sort of the way using snail mail to pay bills by check seems now.

taligent3• 13 years ago

Your logic is completely faulty.

Paying bills over the internet was easier and simpler than paying by check. Paying by credit and debit cards are easier, safer and simpler than using say Bitcoin.

There is zero chance that those cards are going anywhere. If anything the popularity of PayWave and other NFC technologies should see their use increase.

toomuchtodo• 13 years ago

Except its now legal for merchants to tack on a surcharge for you paying with credit (as it should be).

Online merchants will absorb the cost of processing credit cards, as they aren't going to wait for a check in the mail. But physical merchants that can accept cash and are now allowed to recoup that 3%? I can see certain groups of people migrating away from plastic if it increases the cost of their goods/services in a meaningful way.

Nursie6• 13 years ago

I think most people will still love the idea, because of a little thing called payment protection.

No chargeback possibility? No sale from me.

GaryRowe• 13 years ago

Not every online transaction requires a chargeback. Perhaps donating to your favourite artist, author, charity would be easier in Bitcoin. And would mean you don't have to keep careful track of your spending to avoid huge interest rates from the card company.

lowglow3• 13 years ago

Hey all! I'm trying to build a domain registrar we'd actually love to use. Does bitcoin really appeal to you as a user? I'm trying to find a list of must-haves and want-to-have features to bake into my project.

geuis3• 13 years ago

Honestly, a good reputation is the primary feature I care about. Don't be super expensive, on par with Namecheap and godaddy. And don't make the interface bloody complicated. GD is the worst, Namecheap is better but needs work. And make it incredibly easy to move my domains in and out.

lowglow3• 13 years ago

What's the most difficult part about moving your domains in and out and why would you switch registrars?

doctoboggan3• 13 years ago

Let me programmatically set the ip you point to and I will give you money

shiftpgdn2• 13 years ago

Can you expand on this? You could run your own DNS server and setup the appropriate DNS records at any registrar.

lowglow3• 13 years ago

Deal.

bmiranda• 13 years ago

The price of Bitcoin is currently hovering around 37 USD. I remember when Bitcoin was $2.00 after the first crash, I never expected it to rebound so quickly. Announcements such as Namecheap's lend credence to the current price, but I would not be surprised if a correction brought Bitcoin below $30.

Regardless, I am excited that there are more places to spend Bitcoin each and every day.

dmix• 13 years ago

Well I don't think any average person is really keeping large amounts of money in bitcoin.

It has mostly a transactional since the use cases are so niche.

snitko• 13 years ago

That's actually not true. One of the reasons price is high is because people right now are hoarding.

disintermediate4• 13 years ago

>use cases are so niche

This is a first-world misperception. There is half a world excluded from traditional payment methods.

eduardordm8• 13 years ago

Because bitcoins are illegal in my country, I'll keep my personal domains on namecheap but will certainly move my company domains out of there until I figure out if there's a chance I have problems with this.

I like bitcoins just like everyone, but there are laws you need to abide by and bitcoins are illegal in many countries.

Frozenlock• 13 years ago

Do tell more! I was unaware of any country having officially stated Bitcoin as illegal.

paulnechifor• 13 years ago

I too don't know of any such country, but he might be living in a country that bans all foreign currency. (That's how it was in communist Romania.)

n3rdy4• 13 years ago

> Do tell more! I was unaware of any country having officially stated Bitcoin as illegal

Bitcoin itself may not be illegal, but the encryption schemes may be illegal for private citizens to use in some countries, especially ones that don't want their citizens communicating in secret.

jiggy20112• 13 years ago

I assume they still accept real cash.

chc2• 13 years ago

I don't see your concern being very realistic. I very much doubt doing business with a foreign company that accepts Bitcoins is illegal in any country as long as you yourself are not involved in Bitcoin trade. I mean, obviously you can be as cautious as you want, but it seems unreasonable to assume that NameCheap is forcing any liability onto its customers.

eduardordm8• 13 years ago

My only concern is the company credit card getting blocked by my bank, last time it took days to solve this.

I pasted the law and even a case to some other replies, I wouldn't just throw that if it wasn't true.

secondChrome• 13 years ago

I am not aware of any country that has made bitcoin illegal. Are you sure you have your facts right?

eduardordm8• 13 years ago

Yes, I researched this, and my wife is also an experienced lawyer and works in the judiciary system, prior her current job at family tribunal, she worked in commercial sections.

There are many laws here that forbids using any currency that's not the national one, from consumer's laws to financial laws.

manojlds• 13 years ago

Um, are you saying they don't accept real cash anymore?

mahmud• 13 years ago

Move out of Elbonia.

nathan_f77• 13 years ago

Where is bitcoin illegal? I don't think Bitcoin is illegal in any country.

josephagoss2• 13 years ago

Sorry dude, you have several people asking you what country your in and you give no answer. What you said (That Bitcoins are illegal in your country) is complete FUD until you provide some proof.

As far as I am concerned, until you tell us where your country is, it seems your trying to damage namecheap's and /or Bitcoin's reputation for no reason.

Please provide the country and law cited. Cheers.

ragmondo• 13 years ago

Maybe he meant planet ?

analog• 13 years ago

Eduardo is from Brazil.

Perhaps he was referring to this?

http://silvervigilante.com/bitcoin-attacked-by-brazils-secur...

eduardordm8• 13 years ago

My country is in my contact information, I didn't answer because I went to sleep.

This is the law that complete forbids using any currency other than the national for internal commerce and disposes about how forex must work, which bitcoins do not comply.

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/LEIS/L4595.htm

This is a case where people were using dollars to pay for national contracts:

http://jus.com.br/revista/texto/8566/da-impossibilidade-de-p...

jnbiche2• 13 years ago

You appear to be from Brazil, in which case you're flat out wrong. Bitcoins are not illegal in Brazil, or in any other country that I'm aware of. The government securities commission in Brazil recently suspended operations of a Brazil-based Bitcoin investment company ("Grupo de Investimento Bitcoin") that they said was an investment company operating without government approval, but that's a far cry from barring Bitcoin.

eduardordm8• 13 years ago

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/LEIS/L4595.htm

Yes, they are. Any currency other than the national currency cannot be used for commerce.

This is a case where people were using dollars to pay for national contracts:

http://jus.com.br/revista/texto/8566/da-impossibilidade-de-p...

The only kind of parallel currency that is acceptable under the law are called 'social currencies' which are just food stamps.

illuminate2• 13 years ago

These companies advertised on the frontpage of HN as "taking Bitcoins" aren't taking Bitcoins directly, y'know.

xur17• 13 years ago

Why does it matter that they are using a third party system to accept payments?

eduardordm8• 13 years ago

I hesitated adding those links here because of the very high amount of downvotes I'm getting, which means most of you don't like the message I'm passing, anyway, I think you are acting out of emotion, there you go:

Contains links to laws in the US that can be used against bitcoins:

http://www.usmint.gov/consumer/?action=archives#NORFED

Thesis showing that most parallel currencies are illegal (including in the US):

http://repositorio.bce.unb.br/bitstream/10482/9485/1/2011_Ma...

Bank Palmas created a 'social currency', it is a crime here, they escaped jail in 2003, but then in 2011 things got ugly:

http://empreendedorsocial.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2012/07/11/um...

Skoofoo• 13 years ago

Neat, but will they turn a blind eye to domains registered with false information? After all, the biggest advantage of Bitcoin over traditional digital payment methods is its capability to be used anonymously.

redegg• 13 years ago

Providing falsified WHOIS information will only harm the registrant.

rz2k• 13 years ago

It's cheap to register a domain. Fake WHOIS information may mean that you have a possibility of losing the domain, but if you're doing something sketchy, or just politically unpopular to people who matter, there isn't a paper trail.

Really, a debit card card purchased with cash would probably work just as well, but there are imaginable situations where the risk of losing the domain is less of a problem than being identified as the registrant.

rwg2• 13 years ago

How?

I keep valid contact information in the WHOIS records for my domains, and all I get out of it is e-mail spam from my registrar, e-mail spam from everyone else, snail mail spam from my registrar, snail mail spam from competing registrars (Domain Registry of America, anyone?), "SELL YOUR DOMAIN TO US!" robocall spam, and yearly ICANN WDRP e-mails from my registrar.

n3rdy4• 13 years ago

> Neat, but will they turn a blind eye to domains registered with false information?

I imagine in the future internet, domain registrations will be just as anonymous (like .onion on tor) as bitcoin, no reason domain names can't be decentralized (different tld's of course).

eof• 13 years ago

Probably you know, but there is an alternative blockchain called namecoin for DNS. http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page

chii• 13 years ago

i would love a method to be able to anonymously host websites that is un-take-down-able and untracable. It would mean that contriversial stuff can be put there without fear of repercussion, and thus, more democratic.

jeremyjh• 13 years ago

Well the thing is they offer web & vps hosting as well.

I really don't see how they can do that anonymously and still function. They will be constantly fighting scammers and spammers.

disintermediate4• 13 years ago

The biggest advantage of Bitcoin is being able to transfer funds globally without an intermidiary. Think of it as a payment method rather than a currency for the time being and you'll be better served.

jotaass• 13 years ago

I'm honestly not sure, but I was under the impression that bitcoin wasn't really anonymous. All transactions are publicly logged to prevent double spend, so you can trace a coin from the first time it was used. If you happen to know that an address maps to a specific someone, you can begin to create a pretty identifiable picture.

See, eg: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=241.0

cbr• 13 years ago

I thought this too, but after looking into it I understood how it could be used anonymously: http://www.jefftk.com/news/2013-01-28

tedsanders• 13 years ago

Accepting a volatile currency seems risky.

What if bitcoin drops and I fill register domains on the cheap? Is there a way to prevent this? Are the prices somehow pegged to the dollar?

hmsimha• 13 years ago

Well every currency is volatile isn't it? I guess (if namecheap is a us-based company) they're bitcoin price would fluctuate just as the bitcoin does in relation to the usd.

Maxious• 13 years ago

The payment gateway BitPay calculates how many bitcoins equal a USD price and then give that amount (minus their fee) in USD to Namecheap within 2 days.

"It does not matter how many bitcoins we collect, how long it takes to collect them, what we can sell them for, or how long it takes to sell them."

https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway-api

csense• 13 years ago

Holding a volatile currency is what's risky.

If the seller and the payment provider quickly convert their bitcoins into USD -- as seems likely to be the case based on the link in Maxious's reply -- then they're minimizing the time interval during which their wealth is exposed to exchange rate fluctuations.

qdot76367• 13 years ago

Ok. So accepting bitcoin, but they still won't have things like two-factor auth available for "several months" (reference: https://community.namecheap.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10...).

I realize PR departments are probably flailing wildly over $33 bitcoins, but which feature do you think your users are more likely to use?

doublextremevil• 13 years ago

minor correction to a valid post: as of 06:33 UTC, bitcoin goes for 37.9 USD

sachingulaya• 13 years ago

And now its $39. Its volatility makes it impractical to use as a currency. A bitcoin yesterday is worth 10% less than a bitcoin today.

ihsw• 13 years ago

Now Amazon needs to start accepting Bitcoins for EC2 instances and the world will be on its way past the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.

taligent3• 13 years ago

Well since we are living in a fantasy land why not McDondalds, Ferrari, Apple and Starbucks as well.

StavrosK• 13 years ago

I much prefer it if they all just gave stuff away for free.

tracker12• 13 years ago

Yeah.. and looking at what happened with Wikileaks... I'm sure Amazon's got your back, and won't just cut your service off.

adrianwaj• 13 years ago

I'd like bitcoin to succeed even to a small extent if only as a counterweight to keep central banks in check but it would be better if it weren't so cumbersome to use, ie slow.

jacoblyles2• 13 years ago

It usually takes several days for funds to transfer between banks. Payment processors are a layer built on top of USD. The same infrastructure can be built on top of bitcoin.

Nursie6• 13 years ago

"It usually takes several days for funds to transfer between banks"

Maybe in the US. In the civilised world it can be pretty much instantaneous.

vishaltelangre• 13 years ago

Well, just reading about bitcoin and saw this here. I am pretty fascinated by the fact that it take not much time for currency conversion across the world. Awesome. Hope, this will dominate the current methods, and frauds.

daniel-cussen2• 13 years ago

The Coupa Café of Palo Alto is going to support paying with bitcoin soon. Yesterday I bought coffee for $2.00, with the option of paying .17 bitcoin.

tlrobinson2• 13 years ago

Do you know what technology they're using? How long do they make you wait for confirmation, etc.

daniel-cussen2• 13 years ago

I asked, but the people there didn't know much at all about it yet.

gibybo4• 13 years ago

Well, I just tried to transfer one of my domains to Namecheap using Bitcoin, but their implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

I filled in my domain, got to the checkout page, and it gave me three options: Pay from 'Funds', 'Credit Card', or 'Paypal'. Turns out in order to pay with Bitcoin, you have to first add 'Funds' to your account. So I click the link to do that, it asks me how much I want to add (I don't know, aren't you supposed to tell me how much I owe?). Anyway, I follow a few pages and finally end up on BitPay's page where it asks me to send a specific number of Bitcoins to their address, so I do. The page recognizes immediately when I have sent the funds, and redirects me back to Namecheap.

Great, now I can find my way back to the checkout page and finally finish the transfer! Except I can't. Despite having sent the funds, they won't show up in my account for another hour (or possibly up to 24 hours). I understand they want to prevent double spend attacks, but this is absurd. We're talking about a $10 domain that they can just revoke if the payment doesn't clear. They have to wait 45+ days for paypal/credit cards to clear, but they give the product to me immediately, and I don't have to go through their ridiculous fund adding process to do so.

I applaud the effort Namecheap and I'm happy to see Bitcoin becoming more useful, but this needs work.

MertsA• 13 years ago

It sounds like that was something with the API for BitPay, perhaps NameCheap will skip the wait in the future and revoke if necessary but the thing that worries me is that maybe the BitPay API doesn't support notifying on pending funds instead of secured funds.

gibybo4• 13 years ago

I looked at the BitPay API page (https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-payment-gateway-api) and couldn't tell for sure one way or the other. If it really doesn't, they may want to switch to Coinbase (a YC company that offers a similar service) which I know sends notifications immediately (and status updates as confirmations come in).

However, even with that fixed, it's still an issue that Bitcoin was not an option on the checkout page. I had to navigate somewhere else, then go through the checkout process again just to get back to where I was. I shouldn't have to stop what I'm doing and go through a completely different flow to pay for something.

GigabyteCoin• 13 years ago

Many people (like myself) keep a fair sized balance on namecheap to make checkouts faster for credit cards in general, so this won't be a problem for everybody.

hdra• 13 years ago

Same case here, but I was trying to pay with Google Wallet, and I only had to wait for around 20 minutes.

Their interface really needs a make over though. It's like they are trying to win a "Show As Much Information As Possible in A Single Screen contest".

shiftpgdn2• 13 years ago

NameCheap actually doesn't have the capacity to revoke domains as they're an eNom reseller. Enom's policy is that once you buy a domain, it's yours. With domains sales being such a low margin business I can understand their level of caution.

danielhughes• 13 years ago

I had no idea they were a reseller. It's all the more interesting when you look at eNom's reseller pricing page http://www.enom.com/resellers/benefits-pricingplans.aspx. I hope NameCheap is getting better bulk rates than what is listed.

gibybo4• 13 years ago

That's interesting, I didn't realize that. But don't they still have to deal with PayPal/credit card charge backs? Do they think those will be more rare that Bitcoin double spends?

Muromec2• 13 years ago

>Despite having sent the funds, they won't show up in my account for another hour

... and after one hour transactions are marked as "invalid" and you are forced to fill ticket to tech support (which is nonworking either)

tonywebster• 13 years ago

"They have to wait 45+ days for paypal/credit cards to clear"

This is not a thing. There's no concept of 'clearing' when it comes to credit cards; they are authorized for a specific dollar amount or they aren't. If a merchant authorizes $10 for a domain name, it's guaranteed that those funds are theirs (and they're given an authorization code confirming it). They more than likely get the funds in their bank account the very next business day.

The only way the money can be taken back from the merchant is if the consumer does a chargeback with their bank, so the only concern there is fraud.

gibybo4• 13 years ago

Maybe 'clear' was the wrong term, but I was referring to chargebacks. Their only concern with Bitcoin is also fraud, since that's what double spends are too.

Also, I happen to be a previous Namecheap customer with a credit card attached to my account. If the Bitcoin payment had failed, they could have just charged my account/credit card to avoid their loss (possibly with some extra legal annoyances, but I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with that).

WhoIsSatoshi2• 13 years ago

This is beautiful to watch unfold: The universe is taking flight! Do help it, not for the sake of a cryptocurrency, but for the ethical implications. For you and for me.

jacoblyles2• 13 years ago

Why ask useless questions? How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

WhoIsSatoshi2• 13 years ago

Galt he isn't - "The universe believes in Encryption" (J.Assange) and this fact is at the same time the redeeming and redemption of the system we're watching suffer. Key point though - we're not relying on Nietzchieans supermen championing themselves or their genius. We're championing the universe, and empowering everyone. Freedom.

geuis3• 13 years ago

Deepest part of the ocean. 10924 meters http://geology.com/records/deepest-part-of-the-ocean.shtml

Radius from earth to the edge of the visible universe: 46.5 billion light years, http://geology.com/records/deepest-part-of-the-ocean.shtml

Satoshi Nakamoto: a human being or beings

I know what you are trying to say, "why ask unanswerable questions", but all questions have answers.

qompiler• 13 years ago

> Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Amir Taaki

andreyf• 13 years ago

This is crazy: MtGox is 37 USD/BTC today, up from 20 USD/BTC a month ago.

Nursie6• 13 years ago

Bubble 2.0?

largesse• 13 years ago

It's odd about technology. The more pervasive it becomes before it legislators are aware of it, the harder it is to crack down upon. I don't know what the legal challenges will be to the widespread use of BitCoin in commerce, but I'm sure there will be some.

mariuolo• 13 years ago

The same namecheap that blocked *.imgur.com ?

nuII• 13 years ago

Fuck yeah Namecheap!

rrrrtttt3• 13 years ago

Let's say I think that in one year's time Bitcoin will be gone. And let's say I want to put my money where my mouth is and want to short Bitcoin. Presumably there's a lot of people who think that Bitcoin is going to appreciate and thus should be happy to give me a low-interest loan. And yet there is no way to get a Bitcoin-denominated loan. Does this mean that people don't really believe Bitcoin will be with us in one year's time?

jboggan• 13 years ago

If I were to give someone a Bitcoin loan, what interest rate should I charge? The massive uncertainty of that question is enough to discourage any such activity. I wouldn't make a Bitcoin loan with a one-week period.

rrrrtttt3• 13 years ago

That's exactly what I'm saying. If it's deflationary then it should be worth your while to give me a loan at 0% (assuming I am low default risk). The fact that we don't know where Bitcoin is going to be in one week means that we don't really believe it's deflationary.

geoffschmidt• 13 years ago

Bitcoin is not exactly a mature currency. When a new merchant starts accepting Bitcoin payments it's still front page news. So I wouldn't read too much into the lack of lending infrastructure. Evaluating creditworthiness, and going after defaulters, is a lot more work than holding cash deposits or accepting cash in return for products, and those things are still big logistical challenges in Bitcoin land.

rrrrtttt3• 13 years ago

Sure, but I still have my doubts. Apparently merchants like Namecheap accepting Bitcoin don't name their price in Bitcoin, they name their price in USD. Again, if you believe in Bitcoin, shouldn't you name your price in Bitcoin?

ok_craig• 13 years ago

Pretty sure you can borrow and loan bitcoin at bitfinex.com.

jerguismi• 13 years ago

There also options and futures: mpex.co and icbit.se

And also bitfinex.com but generally they are not perceived well.

(haven't used them myself)

wmf3• 13 years ago

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=65.0

You can short BTC on Bitcoinica... oh wait.

lucb1e2• 13 years ago

Looking pretty good, privacy and IPv6 support like you might expect nowadays, only no DNSSEC. Not buying.

juskrey• 13 years ago

Interesting if anyone had conducted an experiment, whether new Bitcoin button, near old good CC payment, actually worsens whole conversion rate, due to interesting Bitcoin reputation in masses.

stevewilhelm• 13 years ago

To put in perspective:

_____~10000000 (10 million) dollars in bitcoin transactions a day [1] verses

~5000000000000 (5 trillion) dollars in daily foreign currency trades worldwide. [2]

[1] http://s831.us/XIQoZ7 [2] http://s831.us/XISAQb

zanny• 13 years ago

My take away is "holy crap, 10 million bitcoin a day is trading hands. That's a lot!"

Especially for a fledgling currency with staunch opposition by traditional bankers and financial markets because it solves a lot of problems that make them a lot of money.

score• 13 years ago

I seems the overall useage and popularity of bitcoins has gone down though. I haven't had a single purchase with bitcoins in about a year at Flow and Zone Games ( http://flowandzonegames.com ) and that's quite a change from the one-a-week clip before.

I don't understand the currency so maybe I'm overpricing.

3am• 13 years ago

Welcome to deflation.

teoruiz• 13 years ago

It's a great step towards domain anonymity, but at the end of the day Namecheap is a company in the USA that needs to comply with USA law and its enforcers. And we know it's not the most privacy-friendly country in the world.

To be fair, registering a .com domain is a bad idea if you want to stay anonymous. Go for a .is, a .ch or even a .eu.

Muromec2• 13 years ago

>It's a great step towards domain anonymity

It`s not about anonymity. All other payment systems just suck.

johnx123-up• 13 years ago

OT: Can anyone suggest a good Bitcoin processor? What about Mt.Gox? Is it sensible to create our own processor and escrow for Bitcoin?

Namecheap now officially accepts Bitcoin

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