If you've ever wanted to buy a permanent MakeMKV key, now is the time.
First of all, thank you for your support. We have always sold, and will continue to sell, MakeMKV as a one-time purchase with a perpetual license, even though it is effectively a subscription product: new keys and firmware files need constant attention. None of this would be possible without you.
We are now testing a new crypto payment system for MakeMKV. The core functionality is working. If you'd like to buy a license and already have a crypto wallet (a verified PayPal account with PYUSD works) or a crypto exchange account, please give it a try. If it seems too complicated, wait a little while we update the documentation.
Honestly, setting up a crypto wallet usually takes about ten minutes, and it's a one-time step. Given the world we live in, most of us will need one sooner or later. More on that soon.
For the brave: pay.makemkv.com
Buying a MakeMKV license
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AstralWanderer
- Posts: 64
- Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2026 10:45 am
Re: Buying a MakeMKV license
Mike,
Thanks for this update.
However is crypto going to be the only way to purchase a licence rather than just an option? As mentioned in the Doubts about the future thread, crypto purchases are non-trivial, even assuming problems do not occur (I would in particular, highlight the links to the Internet Archived Redfox.bz forum discussions about issues encountered).
More significantly, involvement in crypto can result in your bank account being closed. This possibility needs to be red-flagged since it could have a devastating impact on the unprepared.
Even using a credit card to buy fairy dust (that was supposed to say B.tcoin before the forum swear filter got hold of it and I had to munge the URL - remove the hyphen before "currency" to fix it otherwise you'll get a 404 error...) can involve a number of obstacles, including the need to provide government ID ("Show my passport/driver's licence just to buy a program?"), pay extra fees (a MakeMkv licence is hardly pocket money) or rely on a smartphone (which, for privacy reasons, I would not be prepared to tolerate).
As such, an alternate way to pay (credit card, bank transfer, PaySafeCard) would be highly desirable. Presumably MakeMkv is facing similar challenges to the late Redfox.bz, for which you have everyone's sympathy, but crypto payments will be too high a bar for some.
Thanks for this update.
However is crypto going to be the only way to purchase a licence rather than just an option? As mentioned in the Doubts about the future thread, crypto purchases are non-trivial, even assuming problems do not occur (I would in particular, highlight the links to the Internet Archived Redfox.bz forum discussions about issues encountered).
More significantly, involvement in crypto can result in your bank account being closed. This possibility needs to be red-flagged since it could have a devastating impact on the unprepared.
Even using a credit card to buy fairy dust (that was supposed to say B.tcoin before the forum swear filter got hold of it and I had to munge the URL - remove the hyphen before "currency" to fix it otherwise you'll get a 404 error...) can involve a number of obstacles, including the need to provide government ID ("Show my passport/driver's licence just to buy a program?"), pay extra fees (a MakeMkv licence is hardly pocket money) or rely on a smartphone (which, for privacy reasons, I would not be prepared to tolerate).
As such, an alternate way to pay (credit card, bank transfer, PaySafeCard) would be highly desirable. Presumably MakeMkv is facing similar challenges to the late Redfox.bz, for which you have everyone's sympathy, but crypto payments will be too high a bar for some.
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mike admin
- Posts: 4113
- Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2008 2:26 am
Re: Buying a MakeMKV license
Thanks AstralWanderer. A detailed step-by-step guide to paying with crypto is coming soon, so I won't walk through the checkout here. This reply only addresses the specific points you raised. They are fair questions, but most of the sources behind them describe 2024-era payments with volatile coins, not what is being offered here.
1. "Crypto purchases are non-trivial" (the RedFox threads)
Those threads are from April-May 2024 and are about paying in BTC/LTC/BCH: buy a volatile coin, guess the fees, round up, and hope the price doesn't move while PayPal holds your funds for days. The fee thread was posted the week before the April 2024 halving, when BTC fees were spiking (RedFox staff quoted ~$5 per transaction in that very thread).
The new checkout takes only stablecoins, no BTC at all:
2. "Extra fees"
3. Bank account closures
The linked article is a marketing page from a law firm that sells debanking services, and its headline number is wrong. The 343,000 figure comes from the FCA: 343,350 customer relationships exited for financial-crime reasons in 2021/22, reported by ~243 banks, for all reasons (fraud, money mules, sanctions...). It is not a crypto statistic. The article can't even decide whether it is "two years" or "a single year", or whether it comes from the FCA or a "CryptoUK survey".
The triggers it lists are frequent or structured transfers, large unexplained sums (its example is €100,000) and exchanges that have been fined. A one-off $80 purchase from PayPal or a licensed exchange matches none of them. The article's own advice is that "I bought it on Coinbase" is a legitimate explanation.
And the trend is going the other way:
You show ID once, to a regulated financial company, exactly as you did with your bank and with PayPal. MakeMKV never sees it. That is what "regulated" means: you can't ask for a regulated route and no ID at the same time. If you have a verified PayPal account, you have already done it.
PaySafeCard doesn't avoid this either. Since AMLD5, an anonymous PIN is capped at €50 per payment in most of the EU, which is below the licence price. Above that you need a registered account, and the higher limits require photo ID plus a selfie.
5. Smartphone
Not needed. PayPal, Coinbase and Kraken all work in a desktop browser and support hardware security keys or desktop authenticator apps for 2FA. You don't even need a wallet: you can pay straight from PayPal or the exchange. If you do want your own wallet, there are desktop apps, browser extensions and hardware wallets. For comparison, in much of Europe an online card payment is already confirmed through your bank's phone app (SCA).
What is genuinely true
1. "Crypto purchases are non-trivial" (the RedFox threads)
Those threads are from April-May 2024 and are about paying in BTC/LTC/BCH: buy a volatile coin, guess the fees, round up, and hope the price doesn't move while PayPal holds your funds for days. The fee thread was posted the week before the April 2024 halving, when BTC fees were spiking (RedFox staff quoted ~$5 per transaction in that very thread).
The new checkout takes only stablecoins, no BTC at all:
- USDC on Ethereum, Arbitrum or Base
- PYUSD on Ethereum or Arbitrum
- USDT on Ethereum or Tron
2. "Extra fees"
- PayPal (US): no fee to buy, sell, hold or send PYUSD. Sending to an outside address costs only the network fee. The one-step "buy and transfer" option is the exception: it costs 1.5%, so buy first and send separately.
- Coinbase (US): USD to USDC is 1:1 with no fee.
- EU: MiCA-licensed exchanges (e.g. Coinbase, Kraken) accept free SEPA deposits. The cost of buying USDC is a small trading/FX fee, comparable to what your card charges for a purchase in USD.
- Credit cards work at some providers, but many issuers block them or charge them as a cash advance. A bank transfer or debit card is the cheaper way to fund it.
3. Bank account closures
The linked article is a marketing page from a law firm that sells debanking services, and its headline number is wrong. The 343,000 figure comes from the FCA: 343,350 customer relationships exited for financial-crime reasons in 2021/22, reported by ~243 banks, for all reasons (fraud, money mules, sanctions...). It is not a crypto statistic. The article can't even decide whether it is "two years" or "a single year", or whether it comes from the FCA or a "CryptoUK survey".
The triggers it lists are frequent or structured transfers, large unexplained sums (its example is €100,000) and exchanges that have been fined. A one-off $80 purchase from PayPal or a licensed exchange matches none of them. The article's own advice is that "I bought it on Coinbase" is a legitimate explanation.
And the trend is going the other way:
- US: Executive Order 14331 (Aug 2025) ordered regulators to drop "reputation risk" as grounds for debanking. The OCC found that all nine of the largest banks it supervises had debanking-risk policies, including restrictions on digital-asset activity, and is acting on that.
- Banks now sell crypto themselves: PNC (Dec 2025), Schwab (2026), and Germany's Sparkassen are rolling it out this month in their own banking app.
- EU: since July 2026 every exchange serving EU residents must hold a MiCA licence.
- UK: some banks still cap or block payments to exchanges, but that shows up as a declined payment, not a closed account. The FCA published final rules for its crypto regime in June 2026.
You show ID once, to a regulated financial company, exactly as you did with your bank and with PayPal. MakeMKV never sees it. That is what "regulated" means: you can't ask for a regulated route and no ID at the same time. If you have a verified PayPal account, you have already done it.
PaySafeCard doesn't avoid this either. Since AMLD5, an anonymous PIN is capped at €50 per payment in most of the EU, which is below the licence price. Above that you need a registered account, and the higher limits require photo ID plus a selfie.
5. Smartphone
Not needed. PayPal, Coinbase and Kraken all work in a desktop browser and support hardware security keys or desktop authenticator apps for 2FA. You don't even need a wallet: you can pay straight from PayPal or the exchange. If you do want your own wallet, there are desktop apps, browser extensions and hardware wallets. For comparison, in much of Europe an online card payment is already confirmed through your bank's phone app (SCA).
What is genuinely true
- You must send the exact coin on the exact network the invoice shows. Tokens sent on the wrong network can be lost.
- Transfers can't be reversed, and there is no chargeback.
- PYUSD and USDT aren't offered on regulated EU exchanges (not MiCA-compliant), and PayPal UK is buy/sell only for PYUSD. Europeans and UK buyers will want USDC.