Most guides to taking crypto in a web shop start with "sign up for a processor". You paste an API key, the processor hosts the checkout, and the money lands in an account they control until they pay you out. That works, but it means an application, a review, a fee on every sale and a third party that can freeze the balance.

I wanted the opposite: a checkout that runs on a box I own, where the coins go straight into my own wallet and nothing in the middle can hold them. That's what we built with Coldtill , and this post walks through how that kind of setup works and what to watch out for when you wire it into a shop.

What "self-hosted" and "non-custodial" actually mean

They get used interchangeably, but they're different promises.

Self-hosted means the software runs on your infrastructure. Your server, your database, your logs. Customer data never leaves it.

Non-custodial means nobody but you controls the funds.…