Tender Types

Tender types tell Bead which payment rails a terminal, location, or individual payment may accept. They fall into two families:

• Crypto – on-chain or Layer-2 digital assets

• Alternative Payments – wallet apps and QR-based methods (Alipay, PayPal, etc.)

Use the tender-type strings in the tenderTypes array of a create or update call to allow or restrict specific methods.

Quick reference

Family	Example tender types	Where documented
Crypto	ethereum, bitcoin, usdC_Polygon	Crypto Tender Types
Alternative Payments	alipay, paypal, venmo	Alternative-Payment Tender Types

Usage guidelines

1. Terminal / Location configuration – set one or more tender types to limit what the device can accept.

2. Payment requests – omit tenderType to let the platform pick the first enabled method, or pass a single value to force one.

3. Inheritance – terminals inherit tender types from their parent location unless overridden.

4. Forward compatibility – unknown tender strings are rejected with a 400 validation error; always read the latest list before sending new values.

Adding new tender types

When Bead enables another rail, we will:

• Add it to the appropriate child page (Crypto or Alternative Payments)

• Update the /currencies endpoint with network and precision details

• Announce the change in the global changelog

Integrators should pull the tender-type list at startup or pin to a known subset in configuration.

See Crypto Tender Types and Alternative-Payment Tender Types for full tables and network specifics.