PYMNTS and Stephen Pair, CEO, BitPay, recently talked about the future of blockchain-powered payments. They also discussed their advocacy for a ‘greater marketplace acceptance’ of cryptocurrency payments by merchants and customers.
PYMNTS’ October 2022 research report, in collaboration with BitPay, titled, ‘Shopping with Cryptocurrency: Tech-Driven Consumers Drive Market Acceptance,’ is interesting.
Sharing the update, PYMNTS tweeted:
.@spair: Cryptocurrency payments make push for greater marketplace acceptance. Read the recap of our chat w/ the @BitPay CEO here: https://t.co/tyCfr2hD3r
— PYMNTS (@pymnts) December 27, 2022
The research reveals over 1 in 3 (or 35%) tech-savvy consumers support crypto-accepting merchants. In it, 26% would intend to switch merchants so as to shop where crypto payments are accepted. Close to 1 in 4 everyday consumers (or 23%) prefer crypto-accepting merchants, the research states.
BitPay is actively supporting cryptocurrency payments’ acceptance by merchants and customers. Litecoin, for instance, has been accepted by BitPay since July 2021. BitPay has processed approximately 200,000 litecoin transactions, via its partner merchant network, valuing over $35 million.
BitPay CEO says,
“Most merchants would like to take all payment methods.>
As for their customers, Pair says,
The [litecoin] community has been really supportive, they’re buying everything with it. They really pay attention to the merchants on our platform and tend to become patrons of those companies.
In a short-span of one and a half years, Litecoin has emerged as BitPay’s second-most popular currency for crypto-based transactions. Litecoin represents 27% of all merchant purchases at BitPay.
Litecoin bills itself as the silver to bitcoin’s gold, and they’ve always been about payments and making it a great solution for conducting payments,says Pair.
Four out of 10 customers preferred paying for transactions via digital assets as payments in the last 30 days, per PYMNTS’ research.
Despite the fact that crypto-holding consumers are tech-savvy, young, and affluent, crypto payments’ mainstream adoption is pending.
Pair says, There are many merchants that are still not ready for it. They may serve a demographic that is more buy now, pay later than a wealthier, cryptocurrency-using customer base. Maybe they just don’t see the demand from their particular customers for this payment option — but for many other merchants, we can be anywhere from 5-10% of their transaction volume.
Regardless, thousands of merchants globally still sell their products using cryptocurrencies on BitPay.
BitPay considerably mitigates transactional volatility in its merchant network. It makes available to client businesses strong benefits, such as real-time funds’ access.
