What Are The Next Layers Of Vertical Growth For Crypto Payments?

Introduction

One word that can be characterized by the turn of the century is CHANGE. At the start of the century, Web 2.0 was the focus of technological advancement. Investors, businesses, innovators, and creatives saw the possibilities of building a social network where real people can connect with one another from different parts of the world, process virtual monetary transactions, and build businesses online.

Today, with the advent of cryptocurrency and its different unique use cases, payments have now become even more seamless, safer, and faster. The trustless ecosystem has made it possible for two parties to carry out financial transactions without the services of a financial institution.

In this article, we hope to give a detailed breakdown of the progressive development of crypto payments, some key innovations to look out for, and possibly how you can be involved in this rapid fintech development.

Crypto Payments

Cryptocurrency can be used as a store of value. Using Bitcoin as a case study, we can obviously see that it was created to beat inflation and devaluation because of its design and the limited supply.

However, aside from being a store of value, cryptocurrency can also be used to process payments for everyday transactions. We obviously track back to Pizza day when Laszlo Hanyecz used 10,000 bitcoins to purchase Papa John’s pizza in May 2010. Since then, some innovative businesses have integrated cryptocurrency as one of their methods of payments for goods and services.

It is important to note that some cryptocurrency users prefer to make payments with their crypto than to pay with fiat. If businesses can make crypto payments seamless, more crypto users will embrace crypto as a payment method for goods and services.

Current innovations

According to fitsmallbusiness.com, Nine of 10 American adults have heard about digital currency, but only 16% have invested in it. Also, they state that 57% of crypto owners have paid for at least one purchase with the digital currency in the past year, and nearly 60% of those who haven’t owned it are interested in learning how to use it to pay for purchases in the future.

Crypto payments via wallet addresses

The most common method used for receiving crypto payments by various small and medium-sized products or service businesses is through wallets. Most of the forward-thinking businesses that accept crypto payments do so by setting up a crypto wallet with a receiving address to collect these payments. It is as simple as sending the receiving wallet address of the business to the client who in turn transfers the crypto as payment for goods and services.

Payment Integration

However, some other businesses have advanced to the level of integrating a crypto payment gateway. The crypto payment gateways make it possible for customers or clients to pay in crypto, and the money is received in fiat currency by the business. Many popular solutions, like Coinbase and BitPay, have both wallet and gateway functionality for businesses.

Advanced innovations

Asides from receiving payments with wallet addresses, and payment integration to business websites, there are some other innovations that are already being explored in major cities of the world. Some of these fintech innovations include;

• The use of crypto cards for payments. Some exchanges currently provide visa cards to its users.

• The use of crypto POS terminals. Cyclebit.io is a Swedish-based company that is currently providing this service.

• The use of crypto ATMs. Coinatmradar.com is a company that provides various services such as showing a map of available Crypto ATM locations, finding the nearest bitcoin ATM, checking rates at machines online, and also finding a bitcoin ATM with the lowest fees.

In conclusion, the next layers of vertical growth for crypto payments include incentivizing crypto payment users with cash-back rewards, whitelisting them for airdrops, and other opportunities that will be available to ONLY those that use crypto to pay for goods and services.