BTCPay Server

Open-source, self-hosted Bitcoin payment processor. The dominant non-custodial alternative to Stripe/PayPal for BTC.

Repo: github.com/btcpayserver/btcpayserver (.NET / C#).

Architecture

BTCPay Server (.NET app) — main server.
NBXplorer — wallet management, indexes via Bitcoin Core.
Bitcoin Core + optional Electrs / Esplora.
LND / CLN / Eclair — Lightning node.
Postgres for state.

Features

Stores (separate merchant accounts).
Invoices with checkout UI.
PoS (Point of Sale) terminal.
Apps: crowdfund, paywall, gift cards.
Plugins: Litecoin, Liquid, Monero, etc.
Webhooks: notify your app on payment status.
API (REST + Lightning RPC).
Lightning Address resolver out of the box.

Setup

Easy install: BTCPay Docker Deployment script:

. ./btcpay-setup.sh -i

Configures Docker + bitcoind + LND + BTCPay in one go. Production-ready by default.

Security

Minimum version 2.4.2 (7 August 2026). Every earlier release — including the 2.4.2 release candidates — let an unauthenticated remote attacker fetch LND .macaroon files and take over the node. BTCPay confirmed in-the-wild exploitation and stolen funds. BTCPay's own on-chain wallets (hot wallets included) and CLN/Eclair backends are not exposed, but funds held in LND's internal on-chain wallet are part of the affected node and may still be at risk. Advisory
Pair with NBXplorer >= 2.6.10. The update also moves LND to 0.21.1 and regenerates its macaroons; rotate manually if you expose LND through your own reverse proxy, Tor service or forwarded port.
Current release 2.4.4 (7 September 2026); 2.4.3 (24 August 2026) is a further security release for servers shared by many users.
2.4.2 disables Greenfield Basic authentication five minutes after account creation (opt-in via account settings), and temporarily removes public LND API access on Docker deploys — external wallets such as Zeus can no longer connect through the BTCPay domain or onion address. BTCPay plans to restore the option when it is safe to do so; still removed as of September 2026.
2.4.4 hardening defaults: NFC checkout off, zero-amount invoices blocked, store users must accept an invitation, legacy BitPay Basic-auth API keys removed.

Use cases

Merchants accepting BTC + LN.
Shopify / WooCommerce / Magento plugin integrations.
Crowdfunding platforms.
PoS for physical stores.
Donation pages.

Lightning support

LND, CLN, or Eclair as LN backend.
Lightning invoices auto-generated per BTCPay invoice.
LNURL support (LNURL-pay, withdraw).
Lightning Address: customer@yourdomain.com resolves via BTCPay.

API

Greenfield REST API under /api/v1/:

POST /api/v1/stores/{storeId}/invoices
GET  /api/v1/stores/{storeId}/invoices/{invoiceId}
GET  /api/v1/invoices/{invoiceId}/payment-methods
PUT  /api/v1/stores/{storeId}/payment-methods/{paymentMethodId}

BTCPay 2.0 (30 October 2024) removed every payment-method-type-specific route — /payment-methods/onchain/{cryptoCode}, /payment-methods/LightningNetwork/{cryptoCode}, /payment-methods/LNURLPay/{cryptoCode} (GET/PUT/DELETE) — in favour of the generic {paymentMethodId} form, and renamed the ids:

Pre-2.0 id	2.x id
`BTC-OnChain`, `BTC-BitcoinLike`, `BTC-BTCLike`	`BTC-CHAIN`
`BTC-LightningNetwork`, `BTC_OffChain`	`BTC-LN`
`BTC-LNURLPAY`	`BTC-LNURL`

Old id strings are still accepted as input (BTCPay normalises them); responses always return the new names. The on-chain wallet subtree moved to /payment-methods/{paymentMethodId}/wallet/* — preview, generate, address, transactions, utxos, feerate. Invoice payment-method data is a JSON array, with paymentMethodId (was paymentMethod), currency (was cryptoCode) and paymentMethodFee (was networkFee). Checked against the live Greenfield swagger, September 2026.

Common issues

Memory: ~4 GB RAM minimum (more for Bitcoin Core + LN).
Synchronization: bitcoind IBD blocks BTCPay startup.
HTTPS: default deploys with Let's Encrypt; needs DNS.
Plugin compatibility: plugins lag behind BTCPay version.

bitcoin-infrastructure-btcpay