All spheres of social life are constantly evolving. The world economy also did not stand aside. In general, it can be considered one of the engines of progress, because the development of various technologies depends on the economy. This is how the cryptocurrency market, blockchain and other things appeared, on which billions of dollars are now earning. However, entrepreneurs are in no hurry to start accepting payments in digital currency. Why is this happening and how are small and medium-sized businesses responding to the advent of cryptocurrencies?

What stirs up the interest of entrepreneurs in cryptocurrencies?

In 2017, absolutely everyone wrote about cryptocurrency, even the media not from the FinTech world. It seemed to many ordinary people that soon it would be possible to pay a lot for travel on public transport or in a supermarket. But 3 years have passed, and the mass distribution of the crypt has not happened. Why?

The first thing that comes to mind is that the business does not see the potential in the crypt. However, this is not the case. Representatives of the Graft Network blockchain payment system interviewed 65 entrepreneurs. Analysts wanted to know what the business expects from the introduction of cryptocurrency payments. The results are as follows:

    74% of respondents expect an influx of customers and a decrease in commission for acquiring
    60% of entrepreneurs want to improve the status of the company due to the possibility of paying with cryptocurrency
    52% think digital currency will increase the average check of customers
    about 50% believe that cryptocurrencies will allow the creation of new loyalty programs

As you can see, the main desire of entrepreneurs is to increase sales and their own prestige in the eyes of customers. Due to the top topic, which is actively promoted in the media, the company can be seen as more innovative. Here again it is worth remembering 2017, when various companies began to accept cryptocurrencies.

In addition, the study showed why entrepreneurs are still not adopting digital currency in any way. Everything is very simple here - there are inconveniences for clients, especially in offline business. Most business owners also want fast cash out and comfortable POS payments.

What problems do cryptocurrency payment providers have?

You should also look at the situation with the introduction of cryptocurrencies from the side of payment providers. This will help the study of the Center for Alternative Finance at the Cambridge University (Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance), which was carried out in 2017. It shows that global operators have a number of significant challenges.

It turned out that the main problem for such companies is maintaining adequate relations with banking institutions and traditional operators of money transfers. The next factor is compliance with all legal requirements. It involves going through a whole series of bureaucratic procedures, and this often requires significant financial costs. The third problem is low liquidity in the local currency markets.

At the same time, cryptocurrency payment operators are not worried about competition with classical payment systems (for example, Western Union and SWIFT), as well as financial organizations.
What are the advantages and disadvantages for entrepreneurs when receiving payments in cryptocurrency?

Among the advantages, it is worth highlighting the transparency of crypto transactions. Manipulations with tax authorities in the case of introducing a crypt are greatly simplified. Moreover, there is no need to work with huge amounts of documents.

Among the significant drawbacks is the initial complexity of working with digital currency and the need for a set of measures to prevent shadow transactions.

Separately, it should be said about the state regulation of operations with cryptocurrency. For this, the state needs to completely switch to the blockchain system. If this really happens, then this will require the development and adoption of a number of decisions, laws and new legal norms. Among other things, it is necessary to resolve the issue of taxation. When preparing from scratch, the blockchain implementation process takes about 2-3 years. If the state turns to ready-made solutions from the ICO market for help, the process will take much less time.

What is needed to introduce cryptocurrency into business


To implement digital currency payment on a website or in an online store, a so-called crypto gateway is required. This is a special type of software that allows you to receive and send crypt as payment for goods and services. Also, the crypto gateway helps to split the bill for payment and stores the received coins.

One of the most popular and proven services is BitPay. With its help, companies can accept BTC and Bitcoin Cash as payment. For this, the service takes a relatively low commission for processing transactions and converting digital coins into regular currency. To start working with the service, you must fill out an application with data on the company's activities. On the BitPay website, you can find detailed instructions for installing software and working with payments in digital currency.

If the application is rejected for some reason, which also happens, you can take a closer look at twoalternatives - BTCPay and B2BinPay. The first is a free open source server for entrepreneurs who want to accept only Bitcoin as a means of payment. B2BinPAY allows you to accept about 10 largest cryptoassets in terms of capitalization, as well as more than 500 tokens.To get started with this service, you need to fill out an application on the B2Broker website. After that, the user receives detailed instructions on setting up the service by e-mail.

In addition, processing services also provide the following services:

    Bitaps.com
    Coinbase Commerce
    Blockchain.com.

More advanced users may be interested in the Apirone platform. It helps clients accept Bitcoin and Litecoin as payment for goods and services. However, it takes longer to install this plugin to process payments.

Could Bitcoin or any other crypto unit in the near future become a full-fledged currency for settlements?


Some analysts are quite confident that Bitcoin will become one of the leading currencies in the future. In their opinion, it is only a matter of time. But the role of cryptocurrency will be more of an accumulation of value, like gold. People will buy crypto as an investment asset.

Other crypto assets will still be used to solve everyday tasks, such as buying coffee, groceries and other things. For example, some experts consider USDT (Tether) as a means of payment. Today, currencies are backed by gold - something similar will happen in the cryptocurrency market.

There will be no global changes in the foreign economic sector. To conduct transnational crypto trading, it is necessary to create a single ecosystem based on a single software with uniform standards, and this will be extremely difficult and very problematic to achieve. The issue of the global turnover of the crypt affects many interests and it will be difficult to find a compromise, if at all.

As for the internal market, it is much easier to standardize in the blockchain area. It is easier to prepare the legal framework and infrastructure within one country than to customize the whole world to the line.

Outcome

In addition to relatively low fees and fast processing of transactions, the transition to payments in cryptocurrency expands the target audience, allows you to attract a number of new customers and bypass competitors. Moreover, the transition to crypto will help to become more independent from the traditional banking system.

As for the question of taxes for entrepreneurs, they should be the same as regular payments with fiat. However, it is likely that entrepreneurs who decide to implement blockchain in their business will receive temporary benefits and bonuses from the state for the introduction of such innovations.