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The cryptocurrency market might be in a bearish slump, struggling to regain strength in value and stability in trading, but adoption of the market remains bullish. Despite the current state of the market, amidst a “crypto winter”, the ecosystem and industry are still growing with merchants and companies looking to adopt cryptocurrency payments.
According to data platform Pymnts, along with Bitpay, there has been a significant uptick in businesses adding cryptocurrency payments to their options in a bid to win over new customers. The platform recently released a report, ‘Paying With Cryptocurrency‘ which outlines the increase in the number of firms that have added crypto to their payment options. As part of the data, Pymnts found that of businesses with a net income of $1 billion USD per year, 85% are adding cryptocurrency payments to their options in order to attract new customers. Other merchants are also adding crypto to their accepted payments with the listed reason to eliminate middlemen in payments. According to the report, cryptocurrency is also being added to business payments because of the transaction fees, which are listed as lower than other payment methods.
What consumers use crypto for
Looking into the behaviour of crypto users, Pymnts found that 30% of consumers use cryptocurrencies for purchases. However, most Bitcoin and cryptocurrency users (55%) see cryptocurrency as an opportunity for investment, rather than as a transaction asset. This perception of the industry as an investment is typical across different age groups, with 58% of Gen X consumers (the most dominant group) looking to crypto as an investment and 53% of Gen Z (the least dominant group) using cryptocurrency as an investment.
Barriers in the way to the adoption of crypto payments
Companies and merchants that are deterred against using cryptocurrency as an accepted payment option leaned towards technical challenges as a limitation. 68% of those merchants who have not accepted Bitcoin as a payment option cited technical issues as the reason. According to Pymtns:
“Among the merchants that do not accept crypto, 68% say the challenges with implementing the technology to accept cryptocurrency wallets at the point of sale is an important factor in their decision not to accept crypto. Just 11% of the merchants that accept crypto agree that there are problems accepting it for purchases.”
Other reasons against accepting Bitcoin include:
- Cryptocurrency’s volatility and unstable trading prices,
- A lack of transparency in the crypto industry,
- Difficulties with keeping a private key, and
- Difficulties implementing cryptocurrency wallets.