Bitcoin, world’s first successful digital cryptocurrency, is spreading fast. It is now accepted widely by ecommerce stores around the globe. Businesses are rapidly accepting Bitcoins and adapting to the changes in contemporary digital transactions.
It is high time for Magento ecommerce store owners to start accepting Magento Bitcoin payments on their online stores, because of the many advantages cryptocurrencies have to offer.
One of the biggest advantages of bitcoin payments is their low transaction fee of 1 percent at max. On the other hand, current ecommerce payment gateways charge a higher fee of 3 percent to 5 percent.
Secondly, payments made through Bitcoin are treated as the equivalent of cash, which means there is no threat of chargebacks. To simply put it, a transaction made through Bitcoin is similar to that of a payment made through a physical currency, such as bank notes. Almost 70 percent ecommerce stores become a victim of friendly fraud also known as chargeback fraud. Bitcoins can decrease that number.
The third advantage of a Bitcoin is that it is highly secure in terms of payment information. In a credit card purchase, the CC number transmitted by the customer can be used maliciously for illegal transactions. On the other hand, Bitcoins use public/private keys to authorize the payments and include triple layer security protection. What this means is that even if hackers breach the store, no one is at risk of theft due to the secure payment process.
Accepting Magento Bitcoin
If you’re interested in accepting Bitcoin on your Magento store and keeping up with the current Bitcoin price. First, you’ll need to create a Bitcoin wallet to store and manage your Bitcoin payments
Accepting bitcoins on Magento ecommerce stores is super easy. You don’t need any programming skills and many Magento modules allow you to integrate Magento Bitcoin payment method in your store easily within a few minutes. Of the many options, CoinGate Bitcoin Magento extension is very popular and is widely used to accept Bitcoin on Magento stores.
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CoinGate Magento Bitcoin extension makes Bitcoin transactions hassle-free. In addition, it also helps the store accept other digital currencies, such as Altcoin. In this blog post, I have covered the step-by-step installation and integration process of CoinGate Magento Bitcoin extension into the Magento platform. The process has the following steps:
- Signup and setup API credentials on CoinGate
- Install and enable the CoinGate Magento Bitcoin extension
- Configure the API credentials and other settings in CoinGate Bitcoin Magento extension
Note: CoinGate Magento 2 Bitcoin extension is also available for Magento 2 stores.
Signup and Setup API Credentials on CoinGate
First of all, you will need to sign up on the CoinGate official website for a production environment. You can try CoinGate’s sandbox environment to run a demo transaction and make sure everything works fine before going live.
For the Testing Mode to work, you must create a separate account on CoinGate sandbox environment and generate API credentials, since API credentials created on the CoinGate official website will not function in the sandbox environment.
Once you have signed up on CoinGate, you can either complete the auto-setup wizard or navigate to API > App and click + New App button to generate a set of API credentials.
Install CoinGate Magento Bitcoin Extension
Login to your Magento Admin Panel.
Go to System > Magento Connect > Magento Connect Manager.
Get the CoinGate Magento Bitcoin extension key from Magento Connect, paste it in the Magento Connect Manager and click Proceed button to install.
Once you are done, return to the Magento admin panel.
Configure The API Credentials For Magento Bitcoin
Now navigate to System > Configuration.
Click on Payment Methods under SALES.
Expand Bitcoin via CoinGate.com section and enter the required information:
- Set Enabled to Yes.
- Enter the Title and Description.
- Enter your API credentials (App ID, API Key, and API Secret) that you have generated previously.
- Set Receive Currency if you wish to receive your payouts from CoinGate.
- Set Test mode? to Yes if you want to run tests with the CoinGate sandbox environment.
Once you are done, tap Save Config button.
Note: If the extension does not work or if you get the 500 error, Flush the Cache Storage and also rerun the Magento Compiler if it’s enabled.
Conclusion
Congratulations! Your Magento store is all set for accepting Bitcoins. At the checkout, if your customers select Bitcoin as a payment method, they will be redirected to the CoinGate gateway page to pay for their orders using cryptocurrency payments.
Have any questions? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section below.
Fayyaz Khattak
Fayyaz, a passionate Motorbike tourist, works as a Team Lead — Magento Community at Cloudways - A Managed Magento Hosting Platform. His objective is to learn & share about PHP & Magento Development in Community. You can contact him at [email protected]
