Posted 10.02.2022
By Steven Titchener
Crypto currency is something that is growing in popularity and whether you agree it’s worth or not, you can’t ignore that more and more people are starting to at least pay attention to this new method of payment.
And with a new method of payment means that we can think about accepting that method and so in the future we can say:
‘We accepted crypto before it was cool’
You may have heard friends talking about bitcoin or seen your TikTok feed blowing up about Shiba coin, either way, cryptocurrency is growing in popularity. This can be seen from the recent announcement from transaction giant PayPal in March 2021 where they launched checkout with crypto. This allows millions of users to use crypto currency at retailers without any integration from the retailers end.
With this move it proves how far crypto currency has come and how it is winding its way into our daily lives.
As mentioned above, Paypal are accepting crypto as a payment method without any integration into your website. The problem is that currently it is only available in the US, which means all of us here in the UK are stuck with our pound sterling still!
That’s where integrations come in so you can start to accept these methods of payment early and become an adopter of this new method.
One such Shopify plugin is the Coinbase plugin. Coinbase is a platform that allows the buying and selling of cryptocurrency, much like a stock exchange mixed with a digital wallet.
By integrating this system into your Shopify website you can start to accept Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, DAI, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, or USD Coin. Opening up more options for your users to pay and potentially expanding the market for your business to users who are looking for this type of payment.
Despite it being easy to setup and can give you some easy wins just adding this payment method, there are always drawbacks which mainly are around the crypto currencies themselves.
The price of any currency does fluctuate day to day, but with crypto currency it can go up thousands of dollars one day and down a pence the next. You never quite know what the relative cost is going to be at the time of the transaction. This could cause some cash flow issues as well as potential issues for returns, you would then have to base it on the pound value of the item rather than the crypto.
There are so many options of coins out there, with more being added daily, so you will never be able to accept all coins so you will have to stick with the top few to work on.
Overall, accepting the crypto currency payment system isn’t hard to implement and has only a few drawbacks to it. So what are you waiting for?!
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