Frequently asked
Straight answers, before you commit a single payment.
What it costs, how fast money arrives, who stands behind it, and exactly how self-custody works. We lead with what you need to decide, and name the rail's real boundaries rather than bury them.
For your business
The questions buyers ask first
Fees, speed, and what it actually takes to start accepting payments, in plain language, before any technical detail.
Is BitSettle cheaper than Stripe, BitPay, or Coinbase Commerce?
For most businesses, yes. There are no percentage processor fees; you keep 100% of every payment and only pay network costs, which are typically cents. Card processors and custodial crypto PSPs commonly take 1–3% per transaction.
How fast does money actually arrive?
Lightning settles in about a second. USDT on networks like Solana, Polygon, or TRON typically confirms in seconds to a few minutes. On-chain Bitcoin follows normal block timing. There's no multi-day bank payout in between.
Do I need to be technical to use it?
No. BitSettle is a managed service: we host, configure, and monitor the entire stack for you. You point settlement at a wallet you control and start accepting payments. The open-source plugin underneath is there for transparency, not something you have to operate.
Who is behind BitSettle?
BitSettle is a Bitcitizen LLC service, the Bitcoin and USDT settlement rail for the Bitcitizen ecosystem, built on open BTCPay Server. The infrastructure is open-source and auditable rather than a closed black box.
Is USDT really worth a dollar?
USDT is a stablecoin issued by Tether and designed to track one US dollar. It is centrally administered, so the issuer can freeze or affect balances. We name that openly; it's a real property of the rail, not something we hide.
How the rails work
Custody, networks, and settlement
How self-custody works in practice, what happens on the wrong network, and how we keep the rails production-ready.
Does BitSettle ever hold my funds?
No. BitSettle is receive-only. It watches configured destinations and token transfers, while funds settle directly to wallets you control.
What if a customer sends the right token on the wrong network?
Networks are not interchangeable. BitSettle settles only the configured contract or mint on the selected network. Wrong-network recovery depends on your wallet and is outside the receive-only flow.
Does BitSettle handle refunds or payouts?
Refunds go out from your own wallet. BitSettle intentionally never holds signing keys, so outgoing transactions stay under your control rather than ours.
Are public RPC endpoints production-ready?
For real volume we run dedicated, monitored endpoints, because public providers can rate-limit, fail, or return inconsistent history during traffic spikes. Public defaults are only suitable for quick trials.
Still deciding?
See how it stacks up against the alternatives.
Compare BitSettle on fees, settlement time, custody, and refunds, or talk to us about your business directly.