OpenNode

OpenNode sells bitcoin acceptance to merchants. The product covers hosted checkout pages, ecommerce plugins, a payment button, invoicing, in-person payments, outbound payouts and an API, over both the Lightning Network and the bitcoin chain itself. Its terms, last updated on 29 August 2024, name the contracting party as OpenNode, Inc., a Delaware corporation. The company says it serves more than 120 countries and has over 14,000 registered users.

For a shop the first question is who carries the price movement between the moment a customer pays and the moment the money lands. Automatic conversion answers it. The business picks a settlement currency, the rate is locked at the point of payment, and the pricing page states the merchant always receives the full requested local-currency amount. In that mode the processor absorbs the swing, not the till. Hold the bitcoin instead and the exposure is yours. Split Settlement sits between the two, letting a business convert a set percentage and keep the rest, with the ratio adjustable later.

The settlement mechanics are published in reasonable detail. There are eight local settlement currencies, and the on-site converter lists dollars, euros, pounds, Brazilian reais, Mexican pesos, Australian dollars, Hong Kong dollars and Canadian dollars, while payment requests can be priced in over 190 source currencies. Conversion itself is free in both directions. Bank payouts run either on a daily schedule, arriving the next business day, or on demand in one to two business days. Bitcoin withdrawals are free when scheduled weekly on chain, free and instant over Lightning on demand, and 1% for an on-demand on-chain withdrawal. Because payments are started by the payer and settle with finality, there are no card-style chargebacks to claw revenue back; a refund is a payment the merchant chooses to send.

The gap in all this is the number a merchant most wants. Reviewed on 8 August 2026, the pricing page never states the percentage retained from each payment. It says the business receives the requested amount minus processing fees without naming the rate, mentions volume discounts and higher fees for higher-risk categories, and routes anyone with scale or unusual requirements to a custom quote. No minimum payment size is published either. Negotiated pricing by risk and volume is ordinary practice in card acquiring, so this is not unusual, but it does mean the headline cost cannot be compared against rivals before you speak to sales. Ask for the rate, the reserve policy and any monthly minimum in writing.

On the regulatory side there is a similar quiet. The public pages carry no licence or registration number, and the terms read as a commercial agreement with an American corporation. That silence should not be read as a finding: what a bitcoin processor needs depends on whether it holds customer money, in which jurisdictions, and how conversions are executed, and firms in this niche often rely on partners for the regulated legs. It is simply a fair question to put at onboarding. Ask which entity holds converted balances before payout, under what registration, and what happens to funds in transit if the service is interrupted.