GoCoin Brings Altcoin Payments to Shopify Merchants

GoCoin has become the latest payment processor to be integrated into the Shopify e-commerce platform, joining Coinbase and BitPay in offering cryptocurrency payments options to merchants on the platform.

Unlike Coinbase and BitPay, however, GoCoin will allow merchants to take payments not only in bitcoin, but also the altcoins dogecoin and litecoin.

Eric Benz, GoCoin's business development advisor, said the deal has been months in the making, and was only completed because Shopify merchants like GAW Miners asked the e-commerce platform for altcoin payment options.

Benz explained:

"In the beginning when we reached out to [Shopify], they were quite unresponsive ... but a lot of the merchants we work with actually power their platform ... They actually pushed for Shopify to work with us."

Louis Kearns, Shopify's product director in charge of integrations, confirmed that merchant demand was a factor in its decision to work with GoCoin.

"GoCoin facilitates payments for additional cryptocurrencies beyond bitcoin. This was requested by certain shop verticals. GoCoin took advantage of our open gateway APIs, so we could add them to our platform without much work," he said.

Focus on boys' toys

With the integration, GoCoin will be made available as a payment option to more than 120,000 merchants who conduct their online sales through the Shopify platform. The list of merchants using the platform now includes companies like General Electric and Tesla Motors.

Benz said that a pilot programme to test the integration between GoCoin and Shopify showed rapidly growing payment volumes from merchants. GoCoin, he added, has worked with several existing clients, predominantly cryptocurrency miners, to test the Shopify integration over the last eight weeks, with payment volume for those miners increasing threefold over the period.

GoCoin will be focusing on Shopify merchants like miners and tech-focused retailers to promote their integration with the e-commerce platform. The firm will also push for services providers, like developers of social games, to use its services for sales completed through Shopify, Benz said.

Special projects, promotions and generate media attention will be developed for merchants in those categories, he added.

"Our focus is on the miners, electronics – 'boys' toys'," he said.

'Victory for altcoins'

Benz described the new partnership as a major victory for the altcoin markets and a signal that his firm had become a serious contender in the payments processing business.

"This is a big boost to the altcoin market that we're really excited about ... it shows that we want to compete with the biggest names in the business. There are only three processors on Shopify now and we're one of them."

Kearns told CoinDesk that Shopify had already processed "tens of millions" of bitcoin transactions from "thousands" of merchants to date.

The firm welcomed the ability to provide more payment options to its merchants, he said, adding:

"We're always looking for new technologies that will help our merchants ... the partnership with GoCoin provides anyone on our platform with the option to accept multiple cryptocurrencies."

Last week, GoCoin announced that it had signed up the regulated gambling platform Cozy Games to allow bitcoin and altcoin payments for players on its platform.

Just days before that announcement, mining hardware and services company BitFury said it had completed a strategic investment for an undisclosed amount in GoCoin. The firm said it would seek to use the payments company as the default processor for its global vendors.