The right way to accept Bitcoin?

Thursday 6 March 2014 — This is close to 11 years old. Be careful.

A few months ago, I rejiggered a bit of my home page and sidebar, and I added a link to accept Bitcoin. (You know, in case you wanted to throw some my way!)

I couldn’t find a simple description of how create a link that would let people send me Bitcoin, but I was able to create a link at Coinbase:

https://coinbase.com/checkouts/c2a7f9652ecc0f6bf9c240c05109305f

It seems to work, but is there a more Bitcoin-native way to do it? This links to a particular checkout at Coinbase, meaning I’ve set a particular amount. Coinbase also creates new addresses for every transaction, which confuses me.

Is there a link that will let me accept Bitcoin better than what Coinbase does?

» 2 reactions

Comments

[gravatar]
Nate Finch 3:03 AM on 7 Mar 2014
There's a Bitcoin protocol for urls, so bitcoin://address works, though it's not ideal. ideally you want a new address for each donation, to preserve your and their privacy. A single address on your website can work, but then everyone can see how much you've received, and can trace money back to others who have donated to you. Plus when you spend from that address, other people can see who you're sending money to, and if any other addresses are used with that one to pay for things, more is exposed.

Addresses should be thought of as transaction ID's, not bank accounts. A wallet is an account with multiple transactions in it.
[gravatar]
Nate 10:48 AM on 7 Mar 2014
So, now that I'm not on my phone....

Here's a really good post about bitcoin privacy, it's a bit long, but I think it's well worth the read: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0

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