Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts (myself included) long for the day when we will finally reach the "Mass Adoption" of cryptocurrency where average people will be able to pay for everyday goods and services with crypto. Although we may not have reached the "Mass Adoption" phase of cryptocurrency just yet, there are nevertheless many services that are making it easier for customers to pay with crypto and businesses to accept crypto. In today's post, I'll describe the difference between consumer centric crypto payment services (crypto debit cards) and business centric solutions (Bityapy/Flexa) and show how both of these services contribute to making crypto payments more accessible.
Key Points - Consumer Centric Systems
Prepaid cryptocurrency debit cards allow customers to "spend cryptocurrency" by first activating a debit card and topping it up with cryptocurrency. Depending on the type of card, that crypto is either instantly converted to fiat and held as a balance on the "crypto" debit card or kept as crypto and converted on an as needed basis to fiat as each purchase is made. Either way, the business has no idea that crypto was ever used in the transaction as the payment (from a business perspective) is processed exactly like a standard debit card. The advantage of consumer centric crypto debit cards is that it allows individual consumers to empower them to live a crypto-first lifestyle regardless of what businesses do or don't accept crypto.
Key Points - Point of Sale Systems
In contrast to the crypto debit cards which require the customer to spend time and effort setting up a debit card, crypto Point of Sale (POS) systems like Bitpay and Flexa shift the burden of accepting crypto to the business and allow any customer with crypto to simply pay with that crypto by sending it to the business's account. The advantage here is that the business bears the responsibility of accepting the crypto and the customer simply has to show up and pay with their favorite crypto with no pre-planning required.
Although the current tax system severely penalizes crypto use as a payment mechanism, much of the technology and infrastructure required to facilitate crypto payments is already in place. Indeed, virtually any customer that wants to pay with crypto has the ability to do so through the debit cards and any business that wants to accept crypto can do so through the various POS systems. In my opinion, all the tech we need for the mass adoption of crypto is here. At this point, the focus is on helping individual customers/businesses understand how crypto can benefit them and then demonstrating what tools they can use to make it easier for them. In my opinion, crypto adoption will happen slowly and in a decentralized way as every day more and more individuals see the merits of crypto and empower themselves to begin paying with it these easily accessible tools.
As always, thanks for reading and nothing is financial advice.
