Coinkite Keeps Customers in the Loop with Push Notifications

Coinkite keeps customers in the loop with push notifications to deliver payment notices to customers via their API.

Coinkite is a Bitcoin wallet and retail point of sale (POS) service that enables customers to use and accept Bitcoin for payments. Coinkite includes a Bitcoin payment terminal, which accepts Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Blackcoin from Coinkite Debit Cards.

Speed and Security

In launching its service, Coinkite had two key concerns: speed and security. When paying using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it’s now a standard to see confirmation within seconds of the payment being processed. Coinkite also needed a reliable and secure way to create secure channels to ensure secure payments using the Coinkite API.

Realizing the complexity of realtime infrastructure, the Coinkite development team decided to go with a realtime data stream service provider to ensure speed and security, and choose PubNub to do just that.

“We didn’t want to worry about compatibility issues and different means to achieve it. Compatibility and scaling for push notifications are big reasons we went with PubNub. We don’t want to own the infrastructure for push and keep so many sockets open to our visitors,” said Peter Gray, CTO of Coinkite.

Keeping Customers in the Loop with Push Notifications

Coinkite relies on PubNub for all push notifications within their application, which deliver payment notices to customers via their API. When a customer uses their Coinkite Debit Card, a push notification is sent and a banner is displayed at the top of the screen.

After recently launching an API, Coinkite required notifications to be send to API customers about payments and other activity in their accounts.

“We considered implementing Webhooks, but we realized PubNub could do the same things faster and with better language support. Plus it enables a number of possible applications where notifications fan-out to browsers rather than servers.”

Improving Customer Confidence

When paying with cryptocurrencies, security is paramount. The Coinkite API makes heavy use of the PubNub auth_key features to create secure channels for payments. It also is essential for creating a seamless and secure experience for Coinkite users.

“PubNub enables new classes of applications built on Coinkite that previously were difficult or impossible. In-browser confirmations of payments are a big help in improving end-consumer confidence in Bitcoin, and demonstrates its best feature – it’s a great and fast way to pay for things online,” said Gray.