Would you say that you are a cryptocurrency enthusiast or a cryptocurrency skeptic? If you own a business, you may know that you sometimes have to suspend your beliefs, especially if you are not hurting your business, people/animals, or customers. Introducing cryptocurrency payments as a crypto-skeptic may be one of those things.
Maybe now you’re wondering what you would gain from introducing cryptocurrency payments as a payment option for your business. This article will give you a few reasons it may be a good idea.
1. It’s suitable for customers who are looking for discretion or confidentiality
Some people do not like the fact that all their transactions go through traditional banking institutions and that their records would be easy to obtain. They want the discretion and confidentiality that cryptocurrencies afford them. If you think that confidentiality and discretion are the same things, think again.
What is the difference between discretion and confidentiality?
Discretion refers to deciding who may know about the transaction and who should not know. Confidentiality, on the other hand, refers to keeping information 100% secret. Let’s use the example of online casino gambling.
Let’s say a player logs in to your casino through the Grande Vegas online casino USA page. If this player shares a bank account with their partner and does not want them to know that they play, they may use cryptocurrencies payments as cryptocurrency wallets are usually held by an individual. If their partner is the only person they are trying to hide their gambling from, but their friends know of their gambling, then discretion is what they are looking for.
On the other hand, if they are trying to hide their gambling from everyone, including their government (like when a country bans gambling), then they are looking for confidentiality. In this case, they will not pay with just any cryptocurrency but some of the most private cryptocurrencies out there like Monero and the Lightning Network.
2. Allows them to serve players from all over the world.
Essentially, allowing cryptocurrency payments means tearing down the geographical barriers that exist between you and your clients. Because cryptocurrencies are not the tender of any specific government, they can be used to make payments from anywhere around the world without any foreign exchange fees.
This is great if your business carries out international trade. It will be easy to bring international clients on board without coordinating with your banking institution or third-party payment applications to accept foreign currency and convert it to your money.
3. Open up to a broader customer base.
Did you know that according to the Global Findex Database, about 1.7 billion people around the globe are unbanked? These are people who, for one reason or another, do not have any accounts with traditional financial institutions. Some of these people simply distrust these institutions and chose not to open any accounts with them.
One solution put forth by the Atlantic Council to solve this problem is the introduction of digital currencies. Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies are they are an excellent option for those who do not want to be banked by banks. For that reason, if you add cryptocurrency payments to your payment options, you also open yourself up to this customer base. This is besides all the international customers who do not wish to go through the hassle of currency exchange.
4. Lower transaction fees.
As a business, you know that you share part of your profits with financial institutions, or you charge your clients higher fees to cover these costs. If you switch to cryptocurrencies, you can be sure that you cut these institutions out of your transactions. This is because cryptocurrency payments are peer-to-peer payments meaning that there is no intermediary in the transaction. This is great for both you and your customers. Additionally, international customers do not have to pay expensive cross-border transactional fees.
5. Cryptocurrency payments are safer for your business.
You may have heard business owners complaining of customers who make payments then reverse these transactions even though the companies have already begun processing their order or have completed it. This is a type of fraud known as Reverse Transaction Fraud.
Businesses can protect themselves against such fraudsters by allowing cryptocurrency payments. This is because you cannot reverse a cryptocurrency payment. The only way for these types of fraudsters to get back their money would be to ask you to send it back to them, which keeps you safe.
6. Are cryptocurrency payments instant?
There are two ways of looking at this. These are the approval times for the transactions and the processing time. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, approval is typically instant. As long as you have the amount you want to send in your account and maybe a small transaction fee, your transaction is approved immediately. With banking institutions, approval may take a few minutes to a few days, and there is always the risk that the bank will refuse to transfer the money.
When it comes to instant processing, some banks may take a shorter time, but it depends when it comes to cryptocurrency. Depending on how fast transactions are recorded on the blockchain, processing can take a few seconds to a few minutes with crypto.
Summing up
Hopefully, the reasons highlighted in this article have convinced you to at least consider accepting cryptocurrency payments by customers and vendors. As you can see, there is something to be gained by both you and your customers.