Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently tweeted that cryptocurrency payments are superior because of censorship resistance and convenience. This change has given a significant boost to international businesses, charities, and payments within countries, he added.
People continue to underrate how often cryptocurrency payments are superior not even because of censorship resistance but just because they’re so much more convenient.
Big boost to international business and charity, and sometimes even payments within countries.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 24, 2022
Rising crypto-adoption
A January 2022 report by Crypto.com revealed a picture of the financial world, one where cryptocurrencies are being increasingly adopted. In 2021 alone, the global crypto-population increased by 178%, rising from 106 million in January to 295 million in December.
As we can see, the monthly growth of crypto-users closely corresponds to Bitcoin’s price.
Crypto-adoption rate was high back in July-August 2021, but it dropped significantly in September with restrictions in many countries such as China.
We can also see that Bitcoin and Ethereum remain the most popular cryptocurrencies among users, with the former’s share remaining nearly 60%.
BrandEssence Market Research published a study in June 2022, predicting that the global crypto-payment gateway market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 22.8% between 2022 and 2028.
While North America is expected to capture the largest share in the global crypto-payment gateway market, Asia Pacific is expected to witness the fastest growth in the market.
“Increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies broadly is one of the major factors driving the growth of the global crypto payment gateway market… However, lack of awareness (emphasis mine) in the developing and underdeveloped economies may hamper the market growth. In spite of that, increasing advancements in this field may create more opportunities for the further growth of the market.”
The Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange Huobi published the Crypto Perception Report 2022 in January. According to this study, only 28% of respondents said that they own cryptocurrency. 47% of respondents said that they don’t own crypto and don’t plan to, and 25% claimed that while they don’t own crypto at the moment, they plan to in the future.
Over 40% of respondents stated that they are not at all knowledgeable or not very knowledgeable of cryptocurrencies while 28% revealed that they are only somewhat knowledgeable.
Most people are aware of popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum and Shiba Inu but their knowledge of Tether, Solana or Cardano remains low. Over 50% of respondents say that they aren’t knowledgeable enough to invest in cryptocurrencies.
Payment solutions integrating with cryptocurrencies
Last year, Visa Inc. announced the use of the cryptocurrency USD Coin to settle transactions on its payment network in partnership with crypto.com. Mastercard is also offering a range of cryptocurrency solutions, including the Crypto Card Program to enable crypto usage for everyday transactions.
Many crypto-debit cards such as Wirex not only facilitate crypto-payments at POS points, but even reward users with crypto cashbacks.
A June 2022 report published by the research firm Pymnts found that 85% of businesses with over $1 billion in annual online sales accept some form of crypto-enabled payment method, such as PayPal, for purchases. 77% of the merchants that accept cryptocurrencies cite its lower processing fees for its appeal.
As we can observe, the adoption of cryptocurrencies by merchants is increasing at a fast rate and as consumers become more crypto-aware and are incentivized to use them, its adoption is bound to increase.