Every month, LowEndBox puts a question in front of hosting industry leaders and LEB community providers, who are invited to comment and offer their perspective.  Our goal is to stimulate discussion around important issues in the industry, inform our readership, and help other providers so the community as a whole benefits.  If you have a question you’d like to put to the round table, please submit it to us!

This month’s question:

Do you take Bitcoin (or other Cryptocurrency)?  If yes, how do you deal with the wild changes in value we’ve seen recently.  If you don’t take it, why not?

Jay, CEO of NexusBytes

As a global business, a lot of our family members are from countries, where Credit/Debit card comes with hefty international transaction fees and paypal isn’t an option. Crypto currency fulfills that void. Here at Nexus Bytes, we accept major crypto currency such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Etherium and Bitcoin Cash.

Crypto currency is yet to become a stable flat currency, that we could rely on to perform day to day transactions. To most, this is still an asset rather than currency, with real world value. Which also creates a volatile market, where the currency loses stability.

Here at Nexus Bytes, we usually (and almost always instantly) convert and withdraw expense portion of the currency to USD. We convert the rest to BTC and keep the remainder (profit) as future investment and let it ride the wave.

Dustin Cisneros, CEO of RackNerd

RackNerd who was voted #1 as LowEndTalk’s top provider accepts cryptocurrency payments via Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, and ZCash.

It goes without saying that cryptocurrency’s value is constantly variable and dynamic, and while at some times, what an end-user pays you via cryptocurrency today may go up in value tomorrow, as a company you should also be prepared if it were to go the other direction. A handful of transaction’s potential variable amount should not impact your health as a company – and I think that also improves with scale as you continue to grow as a company.

The number one reason why businesses fail today is because their ideas/products weren’t sold quickly enough, AND in quantities high enough. You need to have both margin and volume in order to run a sustainable business that can weather any economic impact. In my last guest post here, I went over 5 tips on how to succeed and expand as a business in 2021, and how you can continue to expand your business even during COVID-19 times. In conclusion, you can monitor your cryptocurrency transactions to see the value change on a day-by-day basis and take actions based on what you as a company are comfortable with, or alternatively – some payment processors may offer the ability to immediately convert the cryptocurrency payment from the end-user to USD for you.

Justin Blanchard, CMO of ServerMania

ServerMania accepts Bitcoin as the only form of cryptocurrency, however, customers must speak to a sales agent when placing the order to receive instructions on how to complete the payment. This is an easy process that can be completed through live chat, ticket or over the phone at the time of checkout.

Bitcoin’s current exchange rate will be charged at the time of submitting the order. For example, if the request is being made on a Saturday the order may not be processed until Monday (during sales hours), so charges would reflect Monday’s Bitcoin exchange rate.

We will be placing more of a priority on building a module for Bitcoin on our order form once we see the increase in demand from Bitcoin paying customers.

Ditlev Bredahl, CEO, OnApp

As you probably know, we don’t sell cloud hosting, instead we enable hosts to sell cloud – and looking at our data since 2010, some of our customers do offer crypto as an option alongside traditional currencies, but mainstream currencies are still most popular. But, that stuff isn’t important.

What’s important about crypto is that it’s an enabler for hosts. It’s a way to escape the clutches of VISA, Mastercard, Paypal. I bet most people reading this have been kicked from their payment provider at some point, or they’ve had funds frozen. That’s because of chargebacks from “establishment” payment systems, or KYC, or because of content restrictions etc. But if you think about “how to implement payment” in the first place, the point is: not everyone finds it easy to get a bank account, let alone a payment provider.

I’m not trying to pick on specific countries, but what if you’re an entrepreneur in Indonesia, for example? You have a great idea, you have a USP, you have your infra and your service… but you’re forced to go with a payment solution that’s charging you 3-5%, your 2checkout for example. You’re a start-up, it isn’t sustainable. With BTC it can either be fully P2P, or a middle-man situation with a commission that’s more like 0.1%.

If hosts start accepting BTC, then BTC starts becoming part of the ecosystem. And in terms of fluctuation, you have options there too: stablecoin, for example. Crypto isn’t mainstream yet – it will be a while before your average head of accounts or CFO is looking to pay their invoices with cryptocurrency – but it will happen. Has to.

Thank you to all of our providers for participating this month!

If you have a question you’d like to put to the round table, please submit it to us!

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raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308

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