I've built my first Paython app on BCH network
Today I've finished my first Python app and it's using Bitcoin Cash network. I didn't think I'll be able to learn programming. I've always thought that you need to be a young man under 30 with excellent math skills but here I'm programming something useful for the first time.
Journey
I've been interested in merchant adoption and I've been voluntarily providing support to a merchant in my city and there were some issue and I wrote an article trying to highlight some issues. @winter
Python is one of the most common easy to learn programming language, I picked it hoping it will help me in the crypto world. I found some time in the lock-down period and learned a little bit Python, it was going smoothly but didn't feel like you are doing something that could be used by me or by people.
The idea of a merchant app was an issue solver so I started to gather the parts required. Contacted @merc1er to get help while learning Bitcash (BCH python library). Got help from @blockparty-sh regarding the awesome fountainhead.cash's Bitsocket and Bitdb API. Also @OPReturnCode helped me a little bit with advices and suggestions.
I ended up paying too much fees for testing as there no Bitdb test net version, but made this available.
My affection with Bitsocket
I couldn't leave this out. The instant payment received notification in Bitcoin.com wallet and some other tools have always amazed me. In one article I think I've inspired @Satoshiwall to create the payment button which uses similar teach. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/dadx9b/donatebuttoncash_was_just_built_yesterday_by_alex/
Ingredients
I've used some awesome tools to build this application.
Python
Tkinter GUI
Bitcash python Lib https://github.com/sporestack/bitcash/
Fountainhead Bitsocket API for instant notifications https://fountainhead.cash/
QR-Code-Generator by Sagnik Chattopadhyaya https://github.com/sagnik20/QR-Code-Generator
Known bugs
Some results from the API aren't handled very well causing some harmless noise
Bitcoin Cash address should be configured manually in 3 places
Probably a lot more, since this is my first app
Wish list
BIP70 support
Onscreen Keypad
SLP tokens support
Multiple currencies
Using multiple APIs
Provide binary packages for major OSes
Building for Mobile phones
Add window to setup configurations
Add xpub support
Source code
I'm releasing this under an open source license, check the code here:
https://gitlab.com/uak/bitcoin-instorepay
Few ideas for Higher Merchant Adoption Based on My Own Experience as a gateway
A while ago I wrote about my experience as a proxy for a merchant who agreed to accept BCH. As I was the one who was receiving BCH and handling cash to the merchant I exposed my self to a lot of merchant adoption risks. https://read.cash/@ClearSky/me-as-a-bch-gateway-for-a-merchant-e291d3bf
Here is what I'm facing:
**Price volatility** which means money loss up to 30%
**Taker Maker fee difference** between Exchanges, the BCH merchant app shows the spot price.
Exposure to financial auditing for transactions that aren't mine as it goes through my exchange account.
Solution 1: Improving the Bitcoin Cash Register app
The App which is nice and very easy to use. However it's so simple that it's just a QR code showing app for the registered address with little transaction log.
What could be done to improve it?
**Allow customizing the ticker** address so users can use local exchange they have account with instead of getting international price based on USD value.
**Support more Crypto Currencies** that doesn't have high double spend risk this way you will not lose time explaining to merchants the difference by all those currencies and merchant will like to see more users coming to his shop to spend their currency of choice and will lower competition for merchants between currency users.
Solution 2 : Exchange merchant account
An exchange that gives auto sell addresses. It's simple you can get an address for 5 currencies you support and get the exchange to do the conversion for you to your coin or fiat of choice. Bitpay and alternative doesn't work currently in all the world and they have 1% fees. Exchanges can do the conversation much cheaper I guess.
We know about automatic trade bots so I don't think this would be a big issue.
Solution 3 : Sideshift.ai merchant account
Sideshift seems to have the teach to build something that can help. They will get your payment in a dozen of currencies then convert it and send to your favorite coin address. They just have to package what they have on the web in a smart phone app so it could be used by merchants.
some
Those were my thoughts, I wanted to share the community. That's all :)
UPDATE: One solution is provided here by cryptofrontier, they use Sideshift.ai to make it work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyjiWcBowEw&
UPDATE 2: we have some BCH/SLP Merchant app by @VinArmani on Github. https://twitter.com/vinarmani https://github.com/vinarmani/MerchantRN
Adoption Outreach Ideas for Open Source Projects
Today I got a news feed through my open source email client and it was about a new version of an open source software called "krita" which honestly I've never heard about it before.
I was interested to find more about it so I visited their website, on their homepage was this big blue Donate now button. I clicked on it wondering if they accept crypto currency donations but they don't.
Enroll them
From my experience with Aurora Store - OS alternative for Google Play - I knew that a simple request may get a project to show that nice crypto currency donate option on one of their pages. So why we don't form a team to invite, arrange and share ideas about adoption? https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/g4fd9k/open_source_google_play_alternative_aurora_store/
IMO we need:
People to check and suggest projects.
People to write to contact project and maybe write nice templates.
People who are ready to make an initial donation to encourage the project.
People to publish new adoption news to get more donations from the community .
A system to monitor donation addresses so they don't run out of crypto currency donations
Telegram group for coordination
I've just got this idea few minutes ago and I thought it might be useful as many of open source projects are more likely to be open to the open nature of Bitcoin (legacy/BCH) and having them showing crypto currency donation option will increase the public interest in crypto between the said project supporters and in general in my opinion.
It's not a one man job and this need a cooperation so we share our free time to do something useful thing to the community.
UPDATE: There is a group on telegram for merchant adoption that could be a good start https://t.me/merchantadoption
Me as a BCH Gateway for a Merchant
So I met this merchant who didn't know much about crypto currencies. I made a deal with him. This is how it went...
I wanted one place in my city that accept crypto, so if I tipped my friends and they asked me what they can do with it. I can tell them go to this store 🛒 and buy a chocolate 🍫 or 🍨 an Ice Cream.
The Search
I tried to find someone who would like to live this experience and take the risk. In my city we don't have Bitpay or similar. So I kept asking family and friends if they knew someone who has a store. I found one who was a friend of my friend 😊. I offered him this two options:
I put a deposit in advance with you like ($100) you deduct purchase amount.
You register crypto sales and I pay you later in cash.
I in return will I advertise his market in the community and tell people about it. He nicely accepted the second offer 🤝.
Setting up the scene
In few minutes I was installing Bitcoin Cash Register (BCH) App for the two employee in the store. It was so simple and easy to setup. I sent few cents to the apps and showed them how it works.
**I put my wallet address in the Apps**. Few days later this sticker was on their window.
The Awful Truth
Months based without a purchase or with just tiny ones. I know BCH is great but it's hard to find people who are willing to spend their crypto in shops let alone only one specific currency. I got into some issue that prevented my work on adoption for sometime. Also with price moving up and down in away that no one can expect 🎢 made it harder to try to convince my self that this could work for shops, add to that the drama that was filling the space in the past few months. I have huge hope that people who are trying move BCH forward are going to success with their new project.
Hope again
In the past few days I was surprised to see relatively lager purchase but that put an additional challenge on me. a purchase of 100 in fiat would become 90 in few hours. Waiting with hope that price will rise it went further down to 76. I had to sell as fast as possible to get them their cash without losing large percentage myself, so I had to cope with this:
Price change
Exchange fees
Money going throw my bank account
I didn't give up. To over come those issues and to move next stage to make merchants do their part I've got some ideas. I hope I'll have time to write about solutions I see very soon.
for now, stay save and healthy.
My adventure to push adoption: Googol.Cash in Beta targeting the freelancing community
I've been working on this with a brilliant programmer, it's still beta and there are still some work to do. I wanted a project for the community so I've created Cash Bridges.
Googol.cash https://googol.cash
It doesn’t take long for someone in BCH community to figure that most people are talking about adoption so I thought maybe I can do something to help drive adoption with the freelancing community. I wanted to start with translation as it’s something I personally need a lot in my daily life and as it’s very important to build bridges, so the name of the project was Cash Bridges or just bridges.
Features
Translation tasks website
Two translation request methods:
donation for small tasks
Contract (blind escrow) for bigger tasks
Blind escrow for contracts with judge from the website
We added internal chat between users to askbot
BIP70 for donation
Website fees for donations and contracts 1% currently
Open source AGPL licensed
Built on
Askbot 0.11
Jeton Lib
Django Postman https://pypi.org/project/django-postman/
Bitcoin.com rest API
Wishlist
Better UX
Adding more security feature (ex: 2fa authentication)
SLP support
Our own node
Python native alternative for the Jeton-lib so we keep it all python
Support for other currencies for donations
Smart phone app
Many other things
Contact
I’m open to your suggestion and question on this thread or on the newly created telegram channel
https://t.me/Googolcash
Code repo:
https://github.com/OPReturnCode/Cash-Bridges
Developer telegram account:
@OPCodeReturn https://t.me/OPCodeReturn
On this earth I would like to thank my friend the brave python programmer who was patience and eager to work on this project , I would like to thank my family members for supporting me in my adventures. Also to thank Roger Ver and other great community members for their great influence on me in taking this decision of creating this project. Not to forget the great open source community who we built upon their work or used it in someway.
Thank you for reading
@ClearSky
