Bitcoin mining company GoMining has unveiled a software development kit and application programming interfaces for its bitcoin payment protocol, GoBTC Pay, putting it in direct competition with Block’s Square and other established payment processors.
What Makes GoBTC Pay Different
The key distinction GoMining draws is that transactions settle entirely in bitcoin. Most rivals, including Square, allow customers to pay in BTC but automatically convert the amount to U.S. dollars before delivering funds to the merchant. Under GoMining’s system, merchants receive bitcoin by default. Those wanting fiat currency must handle their own conversion.
CEO Mark Zalan laid out the philosophy in a Telegram interview: “Our idea isn’t to squeeze bitcoin into the old fiat experience and lose what makes it bitcoin along the way. It’s to solve the real problems with BTC payments the high and variable fees, the slow and unpredictable settlement, while preserving non-custody and onchain finality.”
Protocol Mechanics and Pricing
GoBTC Pay’s defining choice is to settle payments directly on the Bitcoin base layer rather than routing them through a faster layer-2 network, a trade-off that prioritises onchain finality over speed and produces its roughly 12-hour settlement window. It uses GoMining’s Stratum V2 mining protocol to do so.
The SDK and API, announced Friday, give retailers the technical tools to integrate GoBTC Pay into their own products and services, with GoMining planning an initial 10-merchant rollout. Its 0.2% fee, split between wallet providers and miners, undercuts the percentage cuts typical of card processors.
The Competitive Landscape
Block, the fintech company co-founded by Jack Dorsey, has been progressively rolling out a bitcoin payments service for U.S. businesses since early this year, including auto-enabling BTC acceptance for millions of Square merchants. Square’s offering uses the Bitcoin layer-2 Lightning network and converts incoming BTC payments to U.S. dollars by default, with the merchant able to opt into receiving bitcoin instead.
GoMining is betting the opposite direction: that a growing segment of merchants actively wants to accumulate and hold bitcoin rather than convert it. The company is positioning the non-custodial, onchain settlement model as a feature rather than a friction point.
Key Details at a Glance
Protocol: GoBTC Pay, built on GoMining’s Stratum V2 mining infrastructure
Settlement: Directly onchain, average 12-hour settlement window
Fees: 0.2%, divided 50-50 between wallet providers and miners
Launch phase: Initial 10 merchants targeted
Fiat conversion: Not handled by the protocol; merchants manage this independently
