Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen the daily headlines about Bitcoin and other crypto currencies. Since it’s launch in 2009, Bitcoin has been making headlines for it’s growth and volatility.
What we don’t hear about as much, is the actual use case for Bitcoin. In April, Tesla announced that it would accept Bitcoin for payment. While that decision has since been rescinded (due to environmental concerns that conflicted with the Company’s ethos), it is true that Bitcoin and other “alt coins” are being used everyday for payment.
Bitcoin is the flagship crypto currency, but there are many others, with different attributes, uses and audiences. Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Etherium (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC) are most commonly used for payment of consumer goods.
Currently, if you want to accept payment in Bitcoin, or another crypto-currency, you’ll need to have a crypto-currency account to receive those payments. Vendors like Bitpay, CoinBase Commerce, and CoinPayments offer platforms and integration to accept crypto-currency for your products. While these platforms allow for integration with some common shopping carts, the checkout experience is not integrated with other forms of payment (namely the major card brands, Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Discover).
Visa and Mastercard both announced earlier this year that they will be testing crypto currency acceptance soon. Visa has partnered with Crypto.com to facilitate the settlement of transactions in USD Coin (USDC). USD Coin is a stablecoin backed by the US dollar. Consumers can pay in their local fiat currency, like dollars, pounds and euros and the merchant can choose to have the funds from the transaction settled in USDC.
While this may seem like a small thing, this move signals the willingness of the major card brands to move into digital currency. The support of crypto by Visa and Mastercard will undoubtedly help to bring digital payments mainstream, making it more secure and accessible for merchants and consumers.