BTCPay Server is an open source, P2P payment processor for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies where users can self-host their own server and effectively process their own payments.

BTCPay Server is an open source project that has grown impressively over the last year. It is non-custodial and charges no fees for its use. The project is designed around providing merchants (and general Bitcoin users) with a method for accepting cryptocurrency payments without intermediaries and a focus on privacy, security, and censorship-resistance.

BTCPay Server currently does not offer fiat conversion because they emphasize no KYC/AML and privacy, but the non-custodial, P2P, and no transaction fees present a compelling option for businesses and merchants looking to transition away from services like Visa and Mastercard. Using BTCPay Server does not have to be mutually exclusive with legacy payment rails either. Pay buttons and cryptocurrency invoicing options can function as additional features on e-commerce stores via simple plugins.

Features and Advantages

BTCPay Server has a rich feature set that is gradually expanding and offers some unique advantages to users of the project.

BTCPay Server is free and open-source. It is not a third-party custodial company and does not charge any fees. Therefore, besides the on-chain transaction fees of the cryptocurrency applied, there are no transaction or service fees for merchants — a vast improvement over providers like Visa and Mastercard.

Users retain complete control over their private keys, and even with third-party hosting, they are not exposed to the operator of the server. As a non-custodial service, security relies primarily on the user for protecting their private key — only the xpubkey is required by BTCPay Server to generate payment invoices.

This coincides with the project’s privacy advantages, as no KYC/AML is required and only emails are necessary for registering with the service. Only relevant data to the transaction between merchant and consumer is shared. BTCPay Server even automatically generates a new address for each invoice, removing the potential for common mainstream privacy errors where using the same address can lead to easily identifiable information about a user.

Anyone can deploy a BTCPay Server: the project is decentralized and open to any merchant or general cryptocurrency user to try out. It derives its censorship-resistance from Bitcoin and the fact that it is open-source, meaning users can quickly deploy and re-deploy server instances — nobody controls it except for each independent user running the software.

Users have even built web based point of sales payment solutions using the project. Brick-and-mortar stores can leverage the PoS app for accepting crypto payments, and a pay button is available for receiving fixed donations.

Finally, BTCPay Server is compatible with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, which allows users to reduce the on-chain transaction fees for receiving Bitcoin payments. BTCPay Server offers both the c-lightning (Blockstream) and Lightning Labs implementations of the Lightning Network.