Hey dobbsbob, thanks for your comment! Great info! I did try getting a Latvian bank account but even their banks seem to have clamped down on opening accounts for non-EU residents due to money laundering laws - at least in my experience.
As for payment gateways, I wanted to stick to well-known gateways like PayPal and Skrill that consumers would already have accounts with.
I'm sure that walking into a bank in Europe probably would have quickly resulted in the opening of an account, but getting to Europe posed a problem for me as I'm based in the US and didn't have the funds to make the trip. Thus, Bitcoin!
As for payment gateways, I wanted to stick to well-known gateways like PayPal and Skrill that consumers would already have accounts with.
I'm sure that walking into a bank in Europe probably would have quickly resulted in the opening of an account, but getting to Europe posed a problem for me as I'm based in the US and didn't have the funds to make the trip. Thus, Bitcoin!