Settlement Modes

Your settlement mode decides where funds go on-chain and how the GoBTC Pay service fee is collected. It is set per merchant as part of your integration agreement.

At a glance

Property	Operator-settled	Direct-to-merchant (default)
On-chain destination	A GoMining-controlled output	A single-signature address from your xpub
Counterparty exposure	Unsecured credit until payout	None for settled amounts
Finality	After commercial payout	Layer 1, after broadcast and then confirmations
On-chain outputs	Minimal	One per merchant
Service fee	Netted from the payout	No fee output and no co-signature at withdrawal

Operator-settled

Each settlement pays the full cumulative amount to a GoMining-controlled output, and your payout is reconciled afterward as a commercial settlement. This keeps the on-chain output count minimal and decoupled from how many merchants you pay. The trade-off: between settlement and payout, you hold unsecured operator credit.

Direct-to-merchant (default)

The settlement transaction pays your cumulative amount directly to a single-signature (P2WPKH) address derived from your own xpub, giving Layer 1 finality and no post-settlement counterparty exposure. The trade-off: one on-chain output per merchant.

Funds live at single-signature addresses derived from your own extended public key (xpub). Only you hold the private key: GoBTC Pay stores only the xpub, so GoMining cannot move them. The 2-of-3 multisig is the customer's GoBTC Pay app wallet that a payment is paid from, not your wallet.

How the service fee is charged

Operator-settled: the fee is netted from the commercial payout.
Direct-to-merchant: no fee is collected when you withdraw. GoBTC Pay builds the withdrawal as an unsigned transaction and never signs it; only you sign it, with the key of each address being spent. Its only outputs are the recipient and, if there is change, the first address (index 0) of your wallet: there is no fee output, no GoMining co-signature, and no operator credit at any point.