One of the fundamental basics of a cryptocurrency is being able to buy and sell with it. Specifically being able to accept it for goods and services, or vice-versa. While there are services like Coinbase Commerce or Coinpayments.net they're third-party solutions and they also take a cut of the transaction (or charge a fee, which is the same).
For Hive, a crucial component of its success is the ability to transact with it. I know Hive is a social blockchain token, but I see it as a reward for content sharing and curation, and who says you shouldn't be able to spend your reward? Sure, you can trade it, but not all of us are traders or like the experience of trading.
Which is why I have started work on an open-source hive payments library that can be self-hosted. Accept HIVE and HBD for different goods and services easily by downloading and running the Node.
The end result is to have an open-source codebase that the Hive community that freely use to accept HIVE/HBD as well as create an accompanying PayPal like service for those who do not want to self-host and want to transact in HIVE and HBD tokens.
The project is quite far along for only one days worth of work, but there is a lot to finish. However, I wanted to announce what I am working on and invite the community to contribute if they're interested in helping out. I think a solid payments application is an absolute necessity for the Hive blockchain.
The code can be found on GitHub here: https://github.com/Vheissu/hivepayments