Accepting Bitcoin as payment in your business may have seemed like a wild step to take ten or even five years ago, but times have changed since then. As time progresses, it becomes a more and more interesting choice to consider, especially since you would functionally be getting paid in an appreciating asset - just take a look at an Ethereum chart (live chart can be accessed on Binance, CNN, Bloomberg etc) to evaluate how that price has increased over time!
Here, let’s run through some of the advantages of taking Bitcoin as payment, as well as some of the reasons why it might not be the best idea for your business. At the end of the day, it’s a growing technology. With that growth and change comes a lot of complexity!
Drawing in the crypto crowd
Perhaps the most engaging reason for a crypto beginner to start accepting crypto as a form of payment in their business is because it’s very likely to draw in a certain crowd of people: crypto devotees that will be thrilled to see cryptocurrency being accepted by a smaller business than Amazon or Steam.
You may consider this crowd to be a smaller bunch than other demographics, but that couldn’t be further from the truth! Instead, crypto is actually increasing in popularity with time, leading to a greater number of people using it in their day-to-day lives. Many of the people who hold cryptocoins do so because they consider it an investment and watch as it increases in value.
However, marketing your business as something tech-forward that takes their appreciating asset as a payment type is a wise idea. The reason for this is simple: suddenly, their appreciating asset has a place in the real world where it can be used! With time and deliberate effort, you can make your business one of the lucky few that functions as a real-world example of what the future of finance may look like.
Making it a feature
Making crypto a payment type for your business is all well and good, but the point to get across here is that it’s wise to draw attention to this feature. While many businesses may have a post-it note on their till saying that they accept Amex, Visa, and Mastercard, you want something more complex than a post-it to broadcast your crypto acceptance.
In that vein, it may actually be worth advertising yourself as a crypto-forward destination. In addition to taking crypto as a form of payment, you could host crypto events and hold talks and discussions about different crypto coins. This is a generous vein to be mining, so take a few moments to consider how it may help you.
Lowering transaction fees
Perhaps the main benefit of using crypto is that the transaction fees are much, much lower than with other providers. In our modern world, an increasing number of companies and banks are springing up to offer card payment services for businesses around the world. This is all well and good if it increases the number of people coming through your door, but these companies all take their fees!
For example, credit card processing fees for small businesses are often around $0.25 per transaction, plus two to four percent of the total value of that transaction. This may not sound like much, but it adds up over the course of several hundred transactions during a very busy day. This can result in a remarkably high overhead cost, which many companies are trying to avoid by encouraging customers to use cash wherever possible.
Thankfully, there is a better way than using fiat currency to avoid charges made by banks. Instead, cryptocurrency can actually reduce these costs overall to less than one percent of the value of each transaction, with no standing charge per transaction. When you’re dealing in a world of single-digit percentages, the option of something less than one percent is enticing indeed!
Technical barriers
The main disadvantage of wanting to take Bitcoin or other coins as payment is that there is a technical barrier to making it happen. For this reason, it’s wise not to have it be your only payment method!
A great way to reduce the amount of technical difficulties is to set yourself up with a Binance account or an account with a similarly large crypto broker. This will allow you to make transactions between customers and yourself rapidly, as well as give you key information on your crypto holdings and how they’re growing over time.
Famously, a Binance account is how Vitalik Buterin was able to pay for a meal using Ethereum. If it’s good enough for one of the leading voices in the crypto sphere, it’s good enough for you, too! A secondary benefit of a Binance account is how easy it often is to manage your crypto holdings through it. Simply logging in to check on your money is often a much simpler process in the crypto world than it is with real-world online banking.
Accepting Bitcoin as a payment method may seem like an odd idea, but the truth is that it may make a world of difference for your business! While it may not be the perfect idea for you, consider the pros and cons laid out here.