Data shows that both BitPay and Coinbase Commerce, two major cryptocurrency payment processors, have seen bitcoin usage in commerce grow last year.
According to CoinDesk, BitPay CMO Bill Zielke has revealed the payment processor facilitated $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency transactions last year, with bitcoin leading the pack. A spokesperson for Coinbase revealed Coinbase Commerce processed $135 million worth of cryptocurrency payments last year.
The figure reportedly comes after a 600% increase in the number of unique transactions Coinbase Commerce processed since 2018, with ether and other stablecoins making up a fraction of cryptocurrency payments in commerce.
Speaking to the news outlet Sahil Amoli, a Coinbase engineer, said:
In 2020, we’re hyper-focused on providing a complete merchant experience with business features and insights, better serving other geographies with internationalization, adding more currencies, and building seamless integrations that leverage other Coinbase products.
Other consumer-facing firms helping users pay with cryptocurrencies include Fold, which reportedly processed over 2,000 purchases during last year’s holiday shopping season, and Zap’s Strike, which lets users make USD payments via Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
Jean-Michel Daumas, owner of the Lola Luna boutique selling luxury lingerie in Paris, warned it’s too soon to claim bitcoin payments are trendy, adding he believes “people are not ready to pay with crypto” and prefer to keep it. He added, however, he prefers cryptocurrency payments than others. Daumas was quoted as saying:
I prefer to receive payments in crypto because they are more secure for me. For example, when I receive payments from PayPal, some people cheat and say they didn’t receive the goods.
BitPay’s Zielke further revealed Europe and the Middle East are where the most high-value merchant transactions take place, although there are more shoppers in North America in terms of unique transactions.
Featured image via Unsplash.
