Three-Quarters Of Retailers Are Considering Crypto Payments, According To A Survey

Cryptos, despite being in a bearish period, seem to be continuing their adoption into the retail business world, as a survey from Deloitte highlighted that three-quarters of U.S. retailers are ready to implement crypto or stablecoin payment options in the next two years.

Interestingly, over 50% of the large-scale retailers, with revenues over $500 million, are already spending more than $1 million to research and build the required infrastructure for crypto payments.

The “Merchants Getting Ready For Crypto” report by Deloitte also highlights that “merchants broadly agree that organizations accepting digital currencies have a competitive advantage in the market (87%).”

“In fact, an overwhelming majority of those who currently accept cryptocurrency as a payment instrument (93%) have already seen a positive impact on their business’s customer metrics, such as customer base growth and brand perception, and they expect this to continue next year,” Deloitte added.

Source: Deloitte

Deloitte, however, made the survey among 2,000 senior executives at U.S. retail organizations between December 3 and December 16, 2021, when the crypto market was performing high, but the data became official just recently.

Merchants also face challenges

The merchants Deloitte surveyed also denoted some challenges along the way of crypto adoption for the retailers. Namely – integration with existing financial infrastructure and across various digital currencies. Furthermore, one of the biggest concerns about the crypto payments option implementation is the security of the chosen platform, followed closely by problems with regulatory scrutiny and the instability of the crypto market.

However, merchants are also highlighting several benefits of using cryptos and stablecoins for payments. For example, 84% of the surveyed businesses find the lack of exchange fees as a primary benefit for crypto-to-crypto payments, while 85% consider that the incentive programs from payment processors comparable to fiat models would greatly accelerate digital currency adoption.

But, in order to fully benefit from the new payment scheme, over half of the merchants agreed that regulators have to establish governmental guidance around holding and exchanging digital assets, and keeping them in a bank account. Also, regulators have to identify clear tax implications of using digital currencies and to officially recognize and regulate stablecoins in the banking system.

“Our survey confirms the direction and strength of the trajectory toward broad adoption of digital currency payment solutions across US retail organizations. Respondents understand the value and benefits of such capability and have taken steps toward enablement.” Deloitte concluded.

Cryptos move sideways

Despite the havoc over the past month, the volatility in the crypto sector seems to have weakened, as most of the crypto projects recorded little to no price actions on the day. Bitcoin, for example, still hovers around the $30,000 mark, with a current price tag of $30,153.46 per BTC.

The other cryptos are moving in sync with Bitcoin’s price action, with only Chainlink (LINK) increasing 8% over the past 24 hours, followed by Helium (HNT) with an 8% spike, and Tezos (XTZ) with a 7% price increase.

On the flip side, Elrond (EGLD) recorded a 6% price decline, while Klaytn and Gala both lost around 4% of their market capitalizations. The overall crypto market capitalization stabilized at close to $1.24 trillion, after a rollercoaster couple of days that saw the market cap rise to almost $1.3 trillion before plummeting to a weekly low of just below $1.2 trillion, while trading volumes showed a moderate increase.