Did you know that you can buy Bitcoin from 7-Eleven in The Philippines? Or that in France some of the largest retailers are planning to accept Bitcoin in 2020? Or how about Crypto.com’s Pay Checkout plugin which is now available for WooCommerce merchants?
If you didn’t, it’s no big deal, but it’s good to be aware that while cryptocurrency has risen and fallen, in the payment space it has only been on the rise, and this bodes well for the industry.
But what’s so special about making payments using crypto? In China, they have Wechat Pay and AliPay. Chances are you have a credit card. Or what about just paying in plain old cash? But there are actually a lot of reasons why cryptocurrencies are great for payments.
Let’s start with fees. From 2017 onwards, merchants paid a staggering $90 billion to Visa and Mastercard in credit card swipe fees alone. What if we take debit and credit card fees, ATM fees, transfer fees, overdraft fees, and other fees into the equation? Transactions with crypto, however, are cheap. Wallets often free. Crypto payment systems undercut conventional payment providers significantly. This is not just attractive for consumers, but also for retailers who usually operate on thin margins.
We know banks track and store much of our personal and financial data, and while convenient, payments apps for mobile transactions can take data analytics to even higher level. Cryptocurrencies, however, allow for a much higher degree of privacy. Transaction data is limited to addresses and numbers, rather than the identity and spending habits of the user.
