As digital currencies continue to grow in both acceptance and popularity, web hosting and domain registry companies have been embracing the foremost cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, as another method of payment. The privacy and anonymity that is provided by Bitcoin transactions are attractive to a wide-ranging variety of domain registries and web hosting clients.
Bitcoin transactions, ever since they became more common for payments in 2008 use peer-to-peer technology as well as open source software, and managing transactions from an encrypted network. The bitcoin account holders only need to provide their Email address to have their Bitcoin wallet set up, and their transaction details are secure.
The companies listed below are verified, and they accept Bitcoin in exchange for all web hosting services.
Qhoster
Bitcoin is one of numerous unusual payment methods that Qhoster accepts for all hosting services as well as domain name registration. Alongside Bitcoin, Qhoster also accepts payments from debit and credit cards, Perfect Money, PayPal, WebMoney, NETELLER, Skrill, Payza, Litecoin, SolidTrust Pay, Ukash, cashU, OKPAY. They also accept EgoPay, Alipay, Paysafecard, MoneyGram, SOFORT, Western Union, QIWI, Alfa Click, Prezelew24, Sberbank Rossii, Promsvyazbank, Svyaznoy, Interac, Boleto Bancario, OneCard, MercadoPago, PagSeguro, DaoPay, and Fortumo.
It was established sometime in 2004, and they specialize in Windows RDP VPS and Linux VPS. Qhoster also serves the hosting market internationally with well over 2000 customers spread out in five continents which are hosted in the seven different geo locations. Their web hosting services include reseller hosting and cPanel shared, dedicated servers and SSL certificates.
Arvixe
The privately-held web hosting company was founded in San Luis Obispo in 2003 to offer web hosting services which include shared web hosting. Arvixe is optimized for Bitcoin payment for as low as US$4 every month. The accounts can be for personal use, reselling and businesses with a money back guarantee of sixty days. Other services offered by the firm include Virtual private server hosting (VPS), dedicated server hosting, as well as domain name registration.
They offer support for ASP.NET, Linux, and a variety of e-commerce platforms and content management systems that include Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, and Magento.
HosterBox
The Canadian web host called HosterBox was established in Ottawa in 2005 to provide hosting services on a very fast Gigabyte network using a short path between the server clusters. It is guaranteed never to exceed sixty percent of the capacity for the optimum bandwidth. Their professional shared site hosting plans begins at 3.95$ every month.
Registration for a domain name with HosterBox includes a free account transfer. Other hosting services which are provided by the firm includes dedicated hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, as well as e-commerce hosting on a substructure that has nil single points of failure. It also has a 99.99% money back guarantee.
Namecheap
This site was listed as Readers' Choice in the HostReview awards 2003. Namecheap was founded in 2000, and they primarily offer domain name registration services at value prices. Presently, Namecheap manages around three million domains for over a million clients. The company also offers hosting services which include reseller hosting, shared hosting, VPS hosting, private email hosting, and dedicated servers. Other services include one-page websites, SSL certificates, and a support center for users, and it features a live-chat and how-to videos.
Users can pick from a data center situated either in the U.S or the UK for their shared hosting plans which start at US$3.98 every month. The business-class shared hosting plans, on the other hand, starts at US$19.98 every month.
HOSTING.co.uk
The London based hosting company, Hosting.co.uk has shared web hosting charges that start at £2.00 every month. They offer hosting which is built on the single fastest network in the UK. As a green website host, the UK datacenter has a Power Usage Effectiveness of less than 1.3 with an Intel-powered low-power server CPU for energy economy and performance. In addition to reseller and shared hosting with migration services at no cost to the user, HOSTING.co.uk also offers dedicated servers, VPS hosting plans, and business email hosting as well. The encrypted MEGA hosting with cloud storage allows secure storage of the data for a low rate of £8.38 every month for 1TB bandwidth and 500GB storage.
Hosting.co.uk have a MEGA Pro 3 plan which permits the storage of 4TB of data with 8TB bandwidth for only £252.22 every year on the annual plan.
Bitcoin vs. Real World Currency
Pros
Due to the unusual nature of the virtual currencies, there are a few inherent advantages to concluding a transaction with Bitcoin that users of the real world currencies don’t get. Even though these digital currencies such as Bitcoin are a fairly new and experimental medium of exchange, they appear to offer a few unique prospects.
User Anonymity
All Bitcoin purchases are extremely discrete, including a domain name purchase. Unless the user voluntarily circulates his/her Bitcoin transactions, their purchases can never be associated with the personal identity of the user. Just like cash-only acquisitions, Bitcoin transactions cannot be traced to a particular user. In fact, the Bitcoin system generates a new address for all user purchases for every new transaction to ensure anonymity. It uses a decentralized DNS system, and it does not require users to provide any personal identification which can be used against them.
No Third-party Interruptions
Another widely publicized benefit of Bitcoin is that banks, governments, and other financial institutions have no means of interrupting a user transaction or even freezing or controlling the Bitcoin accounts. The system is entire peer-to-peer and users experience a higher degree of freedom in contrast with real world currencies. Governments can block or seize regular domain names, but the decentralized DNS makes it impossible.
Purchases Are Not Taxed
With Bitcoin, there is no avenue for third parties to detect, track or even intercept any transaction that is paid in Bitcoins, and one of the most important advantages of this digital currency is that sales taxes isn’t added to any purchases. A user can pay for his/her domain name without paying any tax on the transaction. In contrast, real-world currencies, when used to pay for such transactions tax the user.
Very Low Transaction Fees
Typically, foreign purchases and standard wire transfers involve fees and exchange charges. Since Bitcoin transactions do not have an intermediary institution such as a bank or the government, the cost of purchase is very low. Also, any transfer made in Bitcoins moves quickly, eradicating the inconvenience of usual wait periods and authorization requirements.
Zero fraud
Most online businesses have to handle multiple fraud issues due to payments from their consumers online. The chargebacks do not only result in loss of their revenue, but they may also need extra man hours to handle and resolve. Because of the nature of bitcoin protocol, every transaction is irreversible, and this means that when a business has been paid, it has been paid and vice versa.
Cons
Price Volatility
If users keep the Bitcoins in their digital wallet instead of spending them almost immediately, they may have to handle their volatility, which may be significant. In the first part of 2014, the price of the Bitcoins ranged from about $1,100 to $600. Just like with consumers, the merchants also suffer due to the volatile nature of the Bitcoin to fiat currencies like euros or dollars. Even though there are machinations in place through services that can instantly convert the payments to a currency of the user’s choice after the transaction, the volatility may still affect consumer buying behavior.
Limited Merchants
Although a lot of big names have begun to accept this digital currency as payment, the other main retailers have not. Therefore, the use of bitcoins is rather notably limited presently. Even though a few web hosting companies receive Bitcoin payments, the options are still limited and this is rather discouraging. Real world currency is received worldwide by all retailers and this is a major edge of digital currency.
Risk of unknown technical flaws
The Bitcoin system is fairly new and could have unexploited flaws. If such a flaw is discovered, it could be used to cheat users out of their funds. Hackers or fraudulent persons can use such flaws to their own advantage. The system is still in development stages and a lot of its features are new. More features will still be required to make it more accessible and secure for use. Until those tools are developed, it stands a risk of being used for fraud.
Wallets can be lost
When a hard drive crashes, the wallet file can be lost without a possibility of retrieval. The wallet.dat file is usually stored in the computer and must be backed up externally because simple tasks such as a computer upgrade can cause a loss of this data.
The coins can no longer be claimed, unlike real world banks that help clients recover account details. The Bitcoins are lost and can’t be reclaimed.
