Bitcoin is the coin most people who hold crypto hold first, and it pays for anything in this shop perfectly well. It also behaves differently from the stablecoins in two ways that are worth understanding before you send rather than while you wait.
The first is that you are always paying a fee you did not consciously choose, and that fee is what decides how long your code takes. The second is that on a cheap card, that fee can be the whole reason the purchase stops making sense.
Neither is a reason to avoid Bitcoin. Both are reasons to send it deliberately.
What you are actually paying
Two separate numbers leave your wallet:
- The order amount — the card price, converted to BTC at the moment you ordered and held for a short window.
- The network fee — paid to Bitcoin miners, not to us. Your wallet usually picks it automatically.
That second number is an auction. Blocks have limited room, everyone sending Bitcoin bids for it, and transactions offering more get included sooner. When the network is quiet, a low fee confirms in minutes. When it is busy, the same low fee can sit for hours.
So the wallet setting labelled "economy", "slow" or "low priority" is not saving you money in a vacuum — it is buying you a longer wait, and on a busy day that wait can be long.
The three things to check before you send
1. The fee tier. If your wallet lets you choose speed, look at what it estimated. For a gift card you want to use tonight, the normal or priority tier is worth the difference. For an order you are relaxed about, economy is fine.
2. Where the fee comes from. Exchanges usually deduct the withdrawal fee from the amount you send, so asking for exactly the quoted figure delivers slightly less than quoted — and a short payment does not release a code. Where the exchange offers to take the fee from your balance instead, take that option.
3. Whether your exchange batches. Many exchanges do not broadcast withdrawals immediately; they group them and send on a schedule, and some add a security hold on new withdrawal addresses. The exchange will say "completed" while the Bitcoin network has never heard of your transaction. That is their queue, not ours, and their support is who can see it.
Then send it the ordinary way
- Pick the card and check its region — the one mistake nobody can reverse after the code is revealed.
- Sign in and confirm the order. The payment page shows the exact BTC amount and the address.
- Copy the address. Never retype it. Bitcoin addresses are long and a single wrong character sends the funds to a stranger, permanently.
- Send the exact amount, with the fee taken from your balance if you have that choice.
- Wait for confirmation. Then the code appears in My orders and in your email.
Closing the tab is safe. The order does not depend on the page staying open.
The price moved while I was sending — did I lose money?
No. The amount you owe was fixed in BTC when the payment page appeared, and it is held for a short window. If Bitcoin moves during those minutes, the number of coins you send does not change.
What the window does mean is that an expired quote has to be re-ordered. If the page sat open while you did something else, place the order again at the current price. Nothing is lost; it is a second trip.
This is the practical difference from a stablecoin: with USDT the number is stable because the asset is, and with Bitcoin it is stable because we hold the quote. Both work. One of them just gives you less to think about — paying with USDT is the calmer route if you hold both.
When Bitcoin is the wrong choice for this
Being straight about it: for a small card during a busy fee market, Bitcoin is a poor tool. If the network fee is a noticeable fraction of a $5 top-up, you are paying a meaningful premium for the privilege of using that particular coin.
For that order, use a stablecoin on a cheap network. For a $100 card the fee is a rounding error and it makes no difference at all.
The other case where Bitcoin wins is simple: it is what you hold, and converting it first would cost you more than the fee. Then send Bitcoin and do not overthink it.
If it has not arrived
The transaction ID your wallet gave you is the whole story, and it is public — paste it into a block explorer and you can see exactly where it stands. What to check when a payment hasn't confirmed walks through reading it, in the order our own support checks things.
The one thing not to do is send again. A pending transaction is not a failed one.
Frequently asked questions
How many confirmations do you need?
Enough for the payment to be settled rather than reversible. In practice you will usually have your code within minutes of the first confirmation on a normally-fed transaction.
My transaction is stuck with a low fee. Can I speed it up?
Some wallets support fee bumping (replace-by-fee or child-pays-for-parent) if the transaction was sent with that enabled. Most exchange withdrawals do not offer it. If neither applies, waiting is the only option — the transaction is not lost, just queued.
Can I pay with Lightning?
The payment page shows the payment methods available for your order. Send on what it names and nothing else.
Is Bitcoin slower than paying with USDT?
Usually, yes — on the cheap stablecoin networks a transfer confirms in seconds. Bitcoin ranges from minutes to considerably longer depending on the fee you paid and how busy the network is.
Does the network fee go to OnyxGift?
No. It goes to Bitcoin miners. We receive the card amount; the fee is what the network charges to carry it.
