FTX Review: Is it Safe? (January 2022)

FTX Pay offers a way for merchants to accept payments from users. There are two main destinations to which merchants can receive payments: an FTX account, and an external wallet.

1. Receiving payments to an FTX account

This is the default mode of payment that FTX recommends to merchants. Using this mode of payment, FTX is able to provide detailed information about the payments to the merchant, including via API. Moreover, because on a technical level the payment involves no funds entering or leaving a crypto wallet (only a transfer between two FTX accounts, which “live” on the same wallet), there are no blockchain fees to consider.

To receive payments to an FTX account, the first step is to create an app associated with that account. From the home page, click the Create/View apps button, which will take you to a page with a table containing the apps you’ve created. Below that table is a Create New button, which will take you to a form for creating an app. You’ll give your app a name, but that won’t be the name users will see as the destination of their payments; that name is internal to your FTX account, just like the names of your subaccounts. Rather, users will see your KYC-verified name as the destination of their payments until you apply to have a different custom name approved by the FTX staff.

Apps you create are forever associated with the subaccount you were in when you created them. Any payments to the app land in that subaccount’s balances. If you specify that a subaccount should only receive a particular currency, all payments will be in that currency.

If you make a mistake while creating an app, you may delete your app so long as the app has received no payments yet. Deleting an app is permanent and irreversible. You may also disable your app, which prevents it from receiving payments but maintains the option for you to re-enable it. Disabled apps will still show up in your list of apps.

Creating an app requires identity verification level 2. A 1% fee is charged on FTX Pay payments.

Setting up payments

From the app details page (reachable by clicking the “VIEW” button on an app in the apps page), there is a button in the upper-left corner labeled SET UP PAYMENTS. Clicking that button brings you to a new page (the “setup page”) from which you can customize the code for a payment button.

When you choose the size and currency of payments, it changes the code that shows up below correspondingly. When you’ve chosen parameters that you like, you can copy the code into your website’s source code, and the button should show up as expected. If you are using React, you will need to modify it slightly by changing onClick="window.open(‘...’)” to onClick={() => window.open(‘...’)}. Otherwise, integrating the button into your website will hopefully be as simple as copy-paste.

When users make payments to you, by default you’ll receive emails (either to the email associated with your FTX account or to a custom email you provide on app creation). To do a more sophisticated backend integration, you may want to get a list of recent payments via API so you can update your database accordingly. FTX provides an authenticated GET endpoint for that purpose.

Optionally, you can require payers to provide a memo. That memo won’t do anything on FTX's side — it’s purely to make it easier for you to identify who’s paying you. For instance, you can have your website give them instructions on what to enter in the memo field.

Applying for a custom name and logo

If you want a particular name to appear as the destination of payments, and for a logo to appear instead of the ordinary FTX Pay logo at the top of the payment dialog, you can apply for a custom name and logo to be approved by the FTX staff for your use. You can find the place where you enter a name and optionally upload an image at the app details page under the header “Request approval for a unique name and/or logo,” under the table of payments to the app. Custom app names and logos are subject to staff approval as an anti-phishing measure.

Linking an FTX app and an FTX US app

Both FTX and FTX US support FTX Pay. However, that doesn’t get around the fact that it’s still not the case that US-based users will be able to connect to FTX. That means that if you’re an FTX-based merchant, any US-based user who clicks the button you embed in your website will be turned away. Obviously, this is highly undesirable.

If you are planning to have both US-based and non-US-based customers, FTX has provided a workaround: you can link an app on an FTX account to an app on an FTX US account. This is at the bottom of the app details page, under the header “Link an FTX [US] app.” If you enter the ID of an FTX US app into the widget on that page, then any US-based payer who clicks a payment button for your FTX app will automatically be redirected to the FTX US app. (Separately, you’ll want to do the same thing on the FTX US side, so that the reverse will be true as well).

2. Receiving payments to an external wallet

If you are interested in DeFi applications, or simply don’t want to make an FTX account, you can set up FTX payments to an external wallet. Because there is no authenticated account from which you can ask for payment details, it will be difficult to know who is paying you by default, if you are receiving payments for services from unknown parties. Moreover, you will pay a 1% fee, plus whatever FTX predicts the blockchain fees will be (this may differ slightly from the actual blockchain fees paid, since FTX charges the fee upon payment request). FTX expects that this may cause problems if blockchain fees are high but the incoming payments are small; for this reason, the team has disabled FTX Pay using ETH/erc20 tokens altogether, to avoid the extremely negative user experience of having the fee be as large as the size of the payment.