Giacomo Zucco, the CEO of the BHB Network, has become quite popular for his use and support of alternatives to centralized services. However, his expert opinion in the crypto industry has led him to post a tweet to try and push airBaltic away from the use of BitPay, which they currently use as a payment processor.
The tweet read:
“Please, @airBaltic, take a look at this thread, after this tweet. Many users are trying to buy tickets w/ bitcoins and failing. You should get rid of BitPay (doesn't work). @BtcpayServer open and free alternative. If you want fiat conversion, you can try @GlobeeCom.”
These comments just add on top of the negative publicity that BitPay has been getting lately. Many cryptocurrency platforms have been dropping it as their own payment option, especially in the last few months. Their fees were one of the first problems to arise in March, causing travel agent CheapAir to claim that they would deter their company and others from its use. This move gained CheapAir tons of support, as they leaned further towards Coinbase, which offers lower fees.
In a June statement and an interview in August, CheapAir followed these comments, saying that BitPay’s infrastructure is the reason that Bitcoin payments are so hard to process. This was a “giant concern,” considering that it ensured that the only ones able to utilize coins had to hold a certain wallet.
In 2014, Bitcoin became an accepted form of payment for airBaltic. At the time, it was permitted to be used for incoming and outgoing flights, making history as one of the first mainstream companies to allow such a thing. Bitcoin has not always been the easiest for users to apply, considering the payment processors (BitPay and Coinbase) were constantly malfunctioning.
According to Bitcoinist, BTCPay has been working to offer tutorial content for businesses that want to move away from traditional payment processors. In the last week alone, BTCPay also promised to boycott the data collection plans that ShapeShift published, specifically including the mandatory KYC protocols.
