Credit cards first came out in the 1920s. In the U.S., hotels, and oil companies were among the first to issue and accept them for the exchange of goods and services. Since then, a lot has happened in the payment domain, with the likes of PayPal popping up in the 1990s, and currently, crypto payments struggling to find a footing.
In the 1950s, credit cards started becoming universal, making them acceptable in many places and not just the place of issue. The move is synonymous with the current wave of crypto payments. Firms that have nothing to do with cryptocurrency mining, like PrimeXBT, which offers a copy trade platform, are now accepting them for goods and services. The trend will probably spark a worldwide usage in the way credit cards became global.
PayPal and the likes of Stripe want to make global crypto-payments a possibility with their recent moves to integrate crypto into their payment ecosystems.
What Businesses Have Accepted Crypto Payments?
Gucci, a luxury brand, has announced cryptocurrency payments for the exchange of its top-line goods in the U.S.
Gucci’s customers will have a choice of about five cryptocurrencies at first, which are Ether, Dogecoin, Bitcoin, Shiba Inu, and Bitcoin cash.
In a separate incident related to crypto payments, Philipp Plein, a German designer, predicts an explosion of crypto-based payments in the growing eCommerce segment. The prediction suggests that people will exchange about $15 million in crypto with business owners at first, but the figure will shoot up once more stores adopt crypto payments.
Beyond the use of Bitcoin for eCommerce, educational environments have experimented with crypto payment solutions. Bentley University has plans to adopt a decentralized sense in its complex web of tuition payments.
The payments will pass through Coinbase, with the likes of Bitcoin, USD coin, and Ethereum the first choice among many to make the payments a possibility.
Crypto is popular among the young, a situation that Bentley wants to leverage and become among the first to do so in the world. In an alternate move, the university will give a sense of anonymity to donors who want to support the university behind a mask using the USDC stablecoin, which keeps a 1:1 parity with the USD.
Why Cryptocurrency Payments Might Be More Commonplace In the Future?
In 2021, up to 3.9 percent of people worldwide owned cryptocurrency assets or had a complete sense of what they were. The number of people owning crypto assets dwarfs those who know about it and have plans to have a wallet at some point. Further, up to 18,000 businesses globally, including those in the UK, allow their customers to make payments via cryptocurrency.
India tops the charts with about 100 million people trading or storing crypto for personal use. The US comes in second with about 20 million, while the UK closes the top five list with about three million crypto owners.
About 3% of people worldwide have a crypto wallet or are active in the crypto markets. The paltry figure handles the over $1trillion in market cap for crypto instruments in existence. The figure has grown steadily in the past decade as crypto picked the interest of many. The figure will only continue to increase, evidenced by the rising number of people now having a sense of crypto.
What Might Limit The Growth Of Crypto Payments?
Volatility is a tag that cryptocurrencies hold and will remain with for a long time. According to PrimeXBT, the instruments have massive daily price swings that make it challenging to price goods in cryptocurrency without looking at the fiat dimension for continuous adjustments. Any effort to keep up with the swings might not be an efficient option for the time being.
Bottom Line
Perhaps the most notable limit to the growth of crypto payments is the recent loss of about 50 percent of the value of Bitcoin from a historical high of over $65k in several months. The tremendous price drop was clear in the PrimeXBT trading terminal. Regardless, the continued adoption of crypto might make it worthwhile to have people pay for goods using the spot crypto prices, regardless of market performance.
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