The last six odd months has seen the cryptocurrency market witness an unparalleled amount of financial volatility, so much so that the total capitalization of this fast-maturing space has dropped from $3 trillion to approximately $1 trillion. This comes after the industry hit all-time highs across the board last November, with Bitcoin (BTC) reaching a price point of $69,000.
Despite the previously stated volatility, a recent report shows that small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across nine separate countries, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Russia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and the United States, are extremely open to the idea of accepting cryptocurrency payments — especially Bitcoin.
Within the study — which surveyed a total of 2,250 market entities — 24% of the respondents said that they plan on accepting Bitcoin alongside other digital assets in the near term, while a whopping 59% of participants revealed that they plan on transitioning exclusively to the use of digital payments by the start of 2025.
From the outside looking in, crypto payments offer a range of benefits. For example, the issue of chargebacks or compliance with payment card industry standards are completely mitigated when it comes to digital assets. Not only that, acceptance of Bitcoin and other digital currencies can help attract additional business from crypto enthusiasts as well as potentially multiply one’s profits (since many of these currencies stand to become more valuable over time).
Does accepting crypto really make sense for SMEs?
According to Igneus Terrenus, policy advocate for cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, Bitcoin makes absolute sense as a day-to-day medium of exchange for SMEs. He told Cointelegraph that as a payment network, Bitcoin (when used in conjunction with the Lightning Network) is unequivocally superior to the seven-plus-decade-old system that underlies credit cards, adding:
“Bitcoin on Lightning is disintermediated, has finality built into it, faster, more secure and is many magnitudes cheaper in transaction cost than credit card’s ~3% fee. The payment does not necessarily need to be settled in BTC since the Bitcoin network can take dollars, convert them to BTC and transfer it across the network and convert it back to dollars upon arrival.”
When asked about the volatility side of things, Terrenus explained that if viewed with a shorter time frame, BTC is no doubt a risk-on volatile asset. However, if looked at with a more…
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