‘Instant Approval’, a new tool launched by Bitnet, aims to attract more merchants to bitcoin.

Bitnet, a bitcoin payment processor based in Belfast and San Francisco offers bitcoin-accepting merchants a new service, ‘Instant Approval’, greatly reducing the waiting times for bitcoin transaction confirmations. Bitnet hopes more merchants would start accepting bitcoins if this feature is available.

Indeed, many merchants are reluctant to accept bitcoin payments because of their slowness. While credit card transactions are verified in seconds, it takes bitcoin payments about 10 minutes to be confirmed on the blockchain. It can take much longer because some payment processors would wait for more confirmations before notifying the merchants that the transaction is complete. Another option is a zero-confirmation transaction but it may give fraudulent bitcoiners possibility to spend their bitcoins twice.

According to Bitnet, their tool will verify payments “in less than 10 seconds”. To make it possible, Bitnet partnered with BlockCypher, a blockchain web services company, an expert in double spending detection and transaction propagation. Bitnet will also use its own anti-risk procedures, monitoring the blockchain and even using “techniques such as those utilised in traditional card fraud prevention”, according to Akif Khan, the chief commercial officer at the company. In any case, there is no risk for merchants: Bitnet promises to guarantee all the payments approved by the service.

In February, Bitnet formed a partnership with Universal Air Travel Plan, Inc. (UATP), a global payment processor, allowing more than 260 international airlines to accept bitcoin payments. A partnership with France-based Limonetik a week ago gave Bitnet access to a great number of European merchants.

Alexey Tereshchenko