Author: Derrick Horton

Anypay released new iOS and Android updates this week that make every payment perfect using the Peer-to-peer Payment Protocol.

App Developers Now Get Paid Bits Of Dash All Day, Every Day, With Zero Financial Risk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – August 6, 2020 PORTSMOUTH, NH – Dash Core Group collaborates with Anypay Inc to produce the most important Dash development of the year: support for BIP70 in all official Dash apps including iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and Linux. All official Dash wallets are now upgraded with advanced abilities to make developing Dash apps easier, more flexible, and more profitable. The change also makes developing with Dash more universally compliant with global money transmission laws.

Every major piece of Dash software now adopts the standard that allows Dash apps to make payments to multiple Dash addresses at once. Previously, payments were limited to a single payment to a single address.

Developers’ imaginations are unleashed thanks to new, profitable code that simply was not possible before. Dash wallets have become programmable to make high-value complex transactions, such as paying all the providers in a supply chain at once, or paying a portion of every ticket sale directly to each member of a rock band; up to hundreds or thousands of addresses.

“We worked with a bunch of great guys from the Dash Core engineering teams to make adding complex payments to their app as simple as possible,” says Anypay lead Steven Zeiler. “Our easy-to-use back-end API Platform for Dash payments made it simple for the wallet developer groups.”

Spenders of Dash in hot spots like Thailand, New England, Venezuela and Online will experience a faster checkout when they go to pay.

Legally compliant apps in all 50 states and 160+ countries

Recently, Dingo Delivery (Caracas, Venezuela) made headlines with its announcement of support for Dash payments in their popular WhatsApp-based personal shopping service. Residents of Caracas may order anything at all delivered to their home with a simple text message and pay with Dash.

But pulling off such a useful integration could have been major trouble for app developers in many parts of the world. Without the latest upgrade, many Dash apps could accidentally be fined $1,115,000 or more for unknowingly violating local financial laws. 

Developers no longer need to worry about losing other people’s money, getting sued, shut down, or spending millions on expensive licenses — because this architecture allows developers to coordinate payments between parties without ever taking custody of funds.

“We eagerly look forward to making payments even more delightful with team Dash” – Anypay

Media Contact:
Derrick Horton, President, Anypay Inc. derrick@anypayinc.com 

One of our users emailed today with a particularly great complaint. We always appreciate your critical feedback, and this one probably applies to a lot of you! The following is the complaint (with the response) for your benefit. The text has been edited to protect the user’s identity:

Dear Anypay Support,

I am having trouble using your service. I have used your service several times in the past with [e-commerce site] and had no problems. This time however, I was not given a public key to send my payment to and was only given a QR code. I attempted to use my camera to capture the QR code and it did capture but the QR code info came up as invalid in my wallet. Why have you removed the public key so I can copy and paste it to make my payments? So far this difficulty has caused me to pass on making 3 purchases at [e-commerce site] due to payment problems.

I noticed other payment services are doing the same shallow thinking by switching to only QR codes and are removing the public key for legacy users. I can no longer recommend Anypay until this is remedied. Neither your QR code works nor do you give any other options to use other than Money Button lol. And Money Button requires me to be logged in at all times (nor does it support Brave browser), so that is also a pain like QR codes are also a pain.

There are studies that show that most Americans do not wish to use QR codes, so having another option is a good thing for USA audiences. I am not sure why you would cancel a feature that your business relied upon as changes break the ritualistic behavior customers come to expect. It is hard to get customers and easy to lose them and making arbitrary changes is one way to lose them fast since humans are ritualistic and like to have their expectations met once established. 

Please know if I did not want a good BSV service to exist, I would not have gone to the trouble to write this and just found another way to make my purchase outside of BSV. 

Thanks.

Email sent to Anypay Support Team from a user

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Darn. It looks like in our effort to improve user experience, we ruined this user’s experience! If he is asking about this, then there must be more of you out there who have the same question. So here is my response to him (and you too):

Hi there,

Thank you for writing to me and sharing your feedback! All feedback is appreciated, especially when critical. My goal is to provide you with the most delightful payment experience imaginable. I am especially happy to hear you want a good BSV service to exist, and I aim to do you proud in that regard.

So that I understand: I hear that you were stopped from making a payment 3 times because you were unable to easily make a payment. Something about the process changed. You used to be able to see the public key so you can copy and paste it to make payments. Now you can’t, and that’s frustrating.

I have good news for you. The old way still works. Here’s how:

Option 1:  Click the “Open in Wallet” button to pay with your favorite desktop wallet.

Option 2: Click the “Copy” button and paste into any BSV wallet that supports Bip270.

Option 3:  Click the QR code to change its format from Bip270 to “Legacy style.” Then click the “Copy” button and paste into your favorite BSV wallet.

So that I can better serve you, can you please tell me what wallet(s) you prefer to use?

Best,

Derrick Horton
Product Manager, Anypay
Telegram: @derrickhorton

PS: Why would Anypay do something so stupid?! 
When bitpay introduced the Bip70 protocol rather than having users manually enter the bitcoin address and amount, customer service requests and error rates plummeted 98%. You and I are pros and won’t mess up, but lots of other people do. As we introduce friends and family to bitcoin, we are moving toward this fail-proof method. Using Bip270 also allows Anypay to do amazing and unique things like provide payment tokens to BSV users so they can leave cryptographically-verifiable reviews using True Reviews, and much more. Learn more here: https://coingeek.com/a-look-at-handcash-recent-anypay-team-up-and-2-1-3-update/

Anypay Support email response to a user

What do you think of that? Is Anypay right to deprecate the legacy-style of copying and pasting addresses manually from one screen to another in order to make a bitcoin payment?

Steven and I went on an adventure to use True Reviews in our town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We walked over to our favorite organic restaurant and picked up some salads and produce to go.

Steven paid using his MoneyButton (via the NRG.CITY web app), and was prompted to leave a True Review. Here’s what it looked like when we did that.

Skip the marketing copy. Show me the documentation.

Your Wallet, Made Magic

Have you ever bought something with bitcoin? It’s bleeping awful, isn’t it? I should know. I have been running a bitcoin payments company for years. And it’s never gotten much better in 10 years of bitcoin.

We always sell it as “simple” and “easy” and “tap, swipe, send!”

But you know, and I know, that it’s never that easy.

It’s awkward. It’s slow. It’s complicated and confusing. Even a seasoned pro, even a freaking wallet developer, will walk up to a bitcoin payment screen, and pause. Hmmmm. Okay. Now what?

Meanwhile, people are in line behind you, or someone is watching curiously, or worse — recording you. The pressure mounts. You do things without looking. You open your phone and play trombone with the camera until the damn QR scans. You look and feel like a damn fool while trying to look cool.

Now add to that — the possibility of paying with dozens or hundreds of of other coins.

No. Just no.

Now the cashier has to ask you, “Which one do you want?”

They have to *know* about Bitcoin Cash, or Bitcoin Core, or BSV, or Cardano, or whatever the heck. And all of it is just freaking stupid.

It should be, “Open. Scan. Send.”

That’s what everyone *wants* it to be.

Why we’re not there yet is … well, probably there are lots of reasons but here we are.

The Anypay Protocol

Okay so Anypay is a multi-coin point of sale. Merchants can choose which coins they want to accept from a small handful of popular options. The cashier types in the amount to pay (in local fiat), and the Anypay app converts it on the spot to a payment request for BSV (or BCH, BTC, or DASH).

Okay, so then say the customer wants to pay with a different coin. Now they have to ask the cashier to change it. Or if they know, they have to reach over and tap the screen themselves. YUCK. Who wants that?

Okay, so they select the coin they want, they pay, and it’s over with. But was that the best experience?

No.

The Anypay Protocol is a simple 1-line change in the code of most wallets that will make every payment magic.

Imagine this:

You walk into a smoothie shop and order a Rocket Fuel (Cold-brew coffee, oat milk, house made PB, banana, cacao powder, maple — delicious).

The friendly cashier, Miranda, says, “That’ll be $8.47. Cash or card?”

“Bitcoin.”

“Ah, okay! We can do that. Hold on.” Miranda taps on the iPad a few times, then turns the iPad around to face you. “Here you go.”

You scan it with your DASH WALLET.

“$8.47. Send?”

WHAT?

It’s a bitcoin invoice, right? Yeah, but thanks to the magic of the Anypay Protocol, your Dash wallet knows exactly what to do.

You open your Badger Wallet to double check that QR code. You scan it.

“$8.47. Send?”

WHAT IS THIS DEVIL WORSHIP?

It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Most people will never have to know. Your mom, your dad, your sister. They will all just scan and it will work perfectly with whatever coin or wallet they use. Because it *has to* be like that. If we’re ever going to get anywhere with this bitcoin thing being used as money, we have GOT to get to the point where it’s slick. Where it’s faster than a credit card. Where it’s as easy as handing over a credit card.

Like, what if MasterCard and Visa and AMEX were all different sizes? That required different processes for swiping? Or different hardware? Or different ANYTHING?

Would you put up with that? NO!

Are you a nerd? You wanna know how it works? Okay lemme break it down for you real quick.

A QR code like this is what you are used to seeing.

bitcoin:1JsTp8URdpac1ySKgh4WjBAYQECsU23Nd6?sv&amount=0.051251&label=Derrick is Awesome Inc

This QR code contains a standard data structure that bitcoin wallets can read.

coin_name:149103jcq09j139130e1j2039dj3?=0.013313

This data has 3 parts:

1. A coin name to tell the wallet what type of coin it is for. (Multi coin wallets like Coinomi and Exodus use this)
2. It has an address (where the coin is to be sent)
3. An amount (how much of the coin to send)

This is the standard way for years and years that people communicated payment information with bitcoin. It’s okay, I guess. But check this out:

This QR code looks the same, but under the hood, it is rocking the following information:

pay:?r=https://api.anypayinc.com/r/e644438a-aa6d-41f3-9566-887fdb8de10a

Okay. My Dash wallet can read that?

Yes. Here’s how:

The Dash Wallet developers made one tiny change to their code. (Okay, it was more involved than that in their case, but for some wallets it is literally just a one line change.)

All they did was make it so that instead of reading, “dash:”, the wallet will also accept, “pay:”

After it reads that, it knows this is a payment URL. The wallet goes to the URL, and grabs the relevant information being served up there. Anypay does its part by providing information relevant to the Dash wallet.

“Here you go, buddy,” Anypay says to the Dash wallet.

“Thanks, bud. You’re a real pal,” the Dash wallet responds.

And off they go, magically making your payment happen in a split second. Taking care of all the complex behind-the-scenes work behind a black curtain so you don’t have to bother with thinking or tapping or waiting or asking.

Just let the girl at the counter present you a QR code, and scan it with whatever wallet you love most.

What’s that, you say? You’re not sure if your wallet supports the Anypay protocol? Well let’s fix that!

Here’s the documentation. Like I said, for most wallets, it’s a single line code change (if you already support payment URLs, which you probably do). But if not, these handy guides can help you do it. Your users want your wallet to be magic. They want to pay a Dash invoice with BSV. Let Anypay give your wallet superpowers you can show your friends.

The Anypay Protocol was developed by Steven Zeiler under the BipCot NoGov Software License v1.2 Use by anyone except governments and their agents is ok. It is not copyright-based, it is entirely shame-based. Learn more at BipCot.org

Documentation

Here is how to implement the Anypay Protocol in your wallet:

pay:

Your wallet already knows how to parse QR codes that say:

bitcoincash:

Or:

dash:

Or:

bitcoin:

Presumably, your wallet also knows how to parse URIs like this:

bitcoincash:?r=https://api.anypayinc.com/r/e644438a-aa6d-41f3-9566-887fdb8de10a

Now the only difference is to make your wallet recognize URIs that start with the word pay:

pay:?r=https://api.anypayinc.com/r/e644438a-aa6d-41f3-9566-887fdb8de10a

That is the Anypay protocol. When your wallet sees the word pay: and then a URI (like above), then it will go to that endpoint, grab the relevant headers, and populate your wallet with the necessary information to pay the invoice.

All of this happens in a split second.