Number of merchants accepting cryptos is still increasing!

The acceptance of cryptocurrencies is increasing. Consumers in 2017 used bitcoin to pay for merchant services for a monthly average of $190.2 million, compared to only $9.8 million in 2013. Nowadays, according to major companies such as Overstock, PayPal, Amazon, Subway or Microsoft are accepting cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin payments volume has grown by 328% over one year as stated by one of the leading payments platform, the BitPay.

The company claims to process over $1 billion annually in bitcoin. They also report that number of merchants accepting bitcoins through their system is growing, BitPay’s merchants are receiving $110 million in bitcoin per month. The sales volume of the electronics retailer called NewEgg, the company’s key partner, is more than doubled from 2016.
This effect is also reported by CheapAir, which sells plane tickets, hotel reservations, and car rentals online.

The company accepts bitcoin payments from November 2013, as one of the earliest merchants of all the time. Its payment volume increased by around 110% in one year. In 2017 PwC, one of the world’s big four accounting firms had accepted the first bitcoins for advisory services provided by its local office in Hong Kong. It is not clear that the PwC network will accept it worldwide, or that is only a special case of the branch in Hong Kong, but the firm stated that it would accept other liquid and established cryptocurrencies, mainly from its clients advised in the crypto space.

According to a survey made by Nomura Instinet found out that more than half of the retailers using Square Inc.’s technology would accept Bitcoin instead of U.S. dollars. The survey was made participating 100 U.S. merchants, operating in various industries with a minimum of $100 000 of annual revenue. The 31-40 age group had the highest representation, around 40% of the responders. After this analysis, it is assumed that growth in cryptocurrency services providers, acceptance, and users, will increase its chance to replace fiat money in the future.

sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/02/spending-cryptocurrencies-on-everyday-purchases-is-getting-easier.html
https://www.nasdaq.com/article/7-major-companies-that-accept-cryptocurrency-cm913745
https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/
https://qz.com/931810/cheapair-and-bitpay-data-show-rising-bitcoin-btc-payment-volumes/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-14/square-s-merchants-are-willing-to-accept-bitcoin-survey-says