BitPay Inc., a Bitcoin payment gateway for online merchants, has created a simplified interface for consumers and added several plugins to encourage more merchants to accept the virtual currency without writing new code.
A lot of things [within the old checkout] mimicked how customers are used to paying for things with a credit card or PayPal, says Tony Gallippi, CEO of BitPay. Credit cards werent made for the Internet.
The new interface displays only the steps necessary for sending bitcoins.
BitPay's new shopping-cart plugins will allow between 20,000 to 30,000 more merchants to easily add bitcoin acceptance to their websites, says Gallippi.
Other updates BitPay made to its platform include adding an exchange rate application programming interface, allowing merchants to display a products bitcoin price to customers and new support buttons to redirect consumers to the merchants customer support instead of BitPays.
Currently BitPay is working with people and companies to promote bitcoin acceptance. For example, the company is working with a small group of people in Japan to sign on merchants and with a large merchant acquirer, Qantani, in the Netherlands.
Bitcoin is going to have a multi-year adoption cycle, Gallippi says. Like email, Bitcoin will be adopted first by companies before it is embraced by consumers.
