BitPay and Coinbase: the popularity of Bitcoin for payments among merchants is growing

According to Coinbase and BitPay, the number of payments in BTC accepted by sellers around the world is growing. For 2019 Coinbase conducted transactions for customers for $ 135 million, and BitPay - for $ 1 billion.

According to BillPay Marketing Director BillZilke (Bill Zielke), the operator in 2019 carried out cryptocurrency transactions for $ 1 billion. At the same time, Bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency used for payments.

Coinbase spokeswoman says CoinbaseCommerce processed $ 135 million worth of cryptocurrency payments for thousands of merchants in 2019. At the same time, the number of unique transactions carried out through Coinbase Commerce since 2018 increased by 600%.

Zilke from BitPay notes that in Europe and onThe Middle East makes the largest payments in cryptocurrencies, while in North America there are more buyers in terms of unique transactions. Ether and various stablecoins make up only a small fraction of the transactions processed by both Bitpay and Coinbase Commerce. According to Chainalysis, about $ 4 billion in bitcoin alone was sent through payment operators in 2019. Coinbase says it plans to expand its trading services in 2020.

“In 2020, we will focus onproviding new tools for sellers, improving services for other regions, adding more currencies and expanding access to other Coinbase products for sellers, ”said Coinbase engineer Sahil Amoli.

Fold CEO Will Reevesstated that during the holiday shopping season of 2019, the company's application processed more than 2,000 transactions, of which 80% were transactions through the Lightning Network.

“Amazon, Starbucks, Sephora were the most popular brands during the holiday season among users of the Lightning Network,” Reeves said.

Given all this, there is every reason forcautious optimism regarding the use of BTC outside of speculative trading in 2020. However, the owner of the Paris Lola Luna boutique, Jean-Michel Daumas, a client at Coinbase Commerce, warned that it was too early to consider payments in bitcoin a commonplace.

“People are not ready to pay in cryptocurrencies. They prefer to keep them, rather than spend them, ”said Dauma. “I prefer to receive payments in cryptocurrencies because they are more secure for me. For example, when I receive payments from PayPal, sometimes buyers cheat and claim that they have not received the goods. "

Dauma said his boutique received over 90payments in BTC since the beginning of 2018, as a rule, the company received no more than four payments per month. Dauma prefers to transfer the received bitcoins to a hardware wallet and adheres to the HODL strategy.

Gradually, more and more companies begin to accept payments in cryptocurrencies. Recently, OneGold's precious metals trading platform has begun accepting cryptocurrencies via BitPay.