Bitcoin Forum

I’ve been a merchant wholesaler for the past four years now. A lot has changed in my business since I introduced Bitcoin as a means of payment. I receive money quickly, I’m able to save up by storing and holding my bitcoins and I can withdraw from my account at my convenience, no limit options. This is far beneficial to me than when I was using banks. Within the first two years Of starting my business I always go to the bank to increase my account limit and set up other necessities. Sometimes it doesn’t get effective immediately I have to wait for 48hrs or the next five working days before it works and still I do have some issues from time to time. This year I decided to start receiving  Bitcoin as a means of payment. All I did was print out my wallet address, pasted it on the wall and my customers who knew about Bitcoin already  was so delighted I introduced Bitcoin as a means of payment and for those who didn’t have an idea,I educated  them on how Bitcoin works and how it can be useful to them.. Everything has been going swiftly,I’m so glad I made this great life changing decision of making Bitcoin a payment method in my business.

Such a nice thing that you have done, many merchants are yet to introduce bitcoin as a means of payment in their business because of volatility, and some accept it, but through payment processors; another drawback is the customers, many of them are reluctant to pay with bitcoin because it is a currency and asset that has an appreciative value, so they treasure it & want to keep it and spend fiat that is depreciative, it makes sense, but it is good to spend bitcoin a few times as you can. I don't know where your business is located, but your post sounded like many of your customers are now actually paying with bitcoin than fiat, that's not possible right? Which makes me curious to know how you go about it. Cheers Superdoctor.

Not everyone does this with courage with the fear of increased tax and legalities within the country. I believe you're good to introduce bitcoin to your customers. There'll be always some sort of limitations with the banking which isn't there with cryptocurrency. This makes cryptocurrency far better against the traditional banking system used for business needs.

Introducing bitcoin as payment option is really good and doing it by now makes you one among the earliest to do so. For now the business transactions are much into banking and other payment applications. Soon this will move to cryptocurrency. What people like do is the the base for large scale progress.

You should accept a variety of altcoins too imo. Sometimes the bitcoin network gets very slow and expensive because lots of people use it and your customers might want to use the alternatives. LTC, XMR, DOGE are good solid alternatives which have been around since forever. They are not as cool as bitcoin but providing some alternatives is still a good idea. imo. Your other choice is enabling the lightning network but I don't think many people use it.

Glad to listen that Bitcoins have helped you so much in making your business so smooth.
Only negative factor of Bitcoins is that the price inflation or fluctuation, for which if you ever need to cash out you might end up with some losses.
But yes if you manage to hold the Bitcoins that you get from your payments for at least 4-5 months, then definitely you will get twice the amount that you held earlier.
Nevertheless it would have been great if you could share with us the exact figure that you receive from cryptos on average in a month. It would have been motivated more business dealers to integrate Bitcoins in one of their payment method also.

Sounds like a sugar coated one, but no offence, it would be good if that really what happen as you may know, lots of crypto businesses file bankruptcy just this year.

You said you started bitcoin accepting just this year. What did you do particularly when bitcoin dumps so much on the past few months? How it affects your business?

Also, what wallet particularly you are using. Did you use a wallet/exchange that eventually exchange bitcoin to fiat or you just store it and exchange later on.

Despite that BTC is just more than a decade old, it’s still very young right now. Until now, there are still lots of people (especially the senior citizens) who aren’t aware of Bitcoin yet despite the trend increases.

But I have a question though. Which Bitcoin wallet are you using for your business? Is it from a centralized wallet? Or Bitcoin lightning network?

I'm usually pretty skeptical of these kinds of stories, but there's something in the story that hasn't made me automatically dismiss it as bullshit.

OP, could you give more details on whether you use a custodial wallet or what kind and if you used an exchange like PX-Z asks?

It would also be helpful to know if you are in a poor country or one of the more industrialized ones. No need to say the exact country if you don't want to.

You may say bitcoin has become your payment method but you also have to realize that not everyone can use bitcoin as payment, like in my country there are still very many people who don't know about bitcoin, in fact they don't even know what bitcoin is, it's best you introduce bitcoin to other people and try to teach them and provide free education to them, so bitcoin can be known more widely.

It will be a good story if you indicate what country your business located to determine the Bitcoin adaptation level on your environment. I’m accepting Bitcoin too on my business since last year and I’m giving discounts for customer that paying using Bitcoin but still I don’t have too much customer that know or want to pay Bitcoin despite my discount offered.

I’m residing in Philippines and Bitcoin is already popular here but even with that good stats on cryptocurrency here. I’m having a hard time to convince my customer to use Bitcoin. Don’t get me wrong, I have 2000 to 5000USD monthly profit that’s why I want them to use Bitcoin instead to save me from conversion fee of my fiat to Bitcoin. I guess people here is not willing to use Bitcoin as payment.

Unfortunately my country has not accepted this method, and it is still illegal to use bitcoin as payment to buy goods, would like to hear about countries that have accepted payment methods using bitcoin, it is very rare to find in my country..

well done my friend. this is called real adoption. people are steping down from centralized systems and onboarding to the decentralized and fast systems such as bitcoin. in my county most of my friends who trades good and services  are accepting bitcoin as one of their payment method now. this is what nakamoto wanted. this is how decentralized financial systems are made.

For accepting Bitcoin as a payment method benefits you in many ways. First, accepting payments in Bitcoin served as an advertisement. Crypto users will be able to figure out your organization very easily. They will be more motivated to get the product with the new payment system. Moreover, there are some common advantages. As you don't have to visit the bank there is no accountability required, no limitations in transaction etc.

Definitely not everyone can use Bitcoin payment method but so far I have been able to introduce so many persons interested in knowing about how Bitcoin works. They now understand how Bitcoin payments are being done, how to  buy, send and receive bitcoins. Well  they now know the basic information about Bitcoin. So even if not everyone can use it I’m glad I have been  able to use Bitcoin as a means of payment in my business and people have been using it very well. For those who are yet to use it, I hope they use it soon.

be an amazing experience by accepting bitcoin payments for the goods you sell. No more withholding taxes and other authorities and your Bitcoins are completely yours. if you have started accepting bitcoin payments, of course your country's regulations already allow bitcoin as a legal tender. but if your country doesn't allow it, I think it's a violation. but after all this is a vivid example of the use of bitcoin as a means of payment for goods and services. you are a little earlier than us who have never used bitcoin as legal tender.

In the country I live in, maybe don't accept bitcoin payment methods yet, it's just that my government has legalized bitcoin in a tourist city, namely BALI, where many foreign guests vacation there to make it easier for them to transact using bitcoin as a payment method, whether it's staying overnight in hotels, bars, or to restaurants, and games, it is also possible to use bitcoin as payment, so that's all I can tell you..

I have also implemented crypto payment system in my business few days back. I had a lot of questions and doubts. After hearing everyone's suggestions on this matter, many things have become much easier to understand and got some very new and innovative ideas which I will be adding to my system.
feel free to read the thread here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5409470.0
And I respect your choice on BTC payment system.

You did the right thing, mate.
Accepting bitcoin as a payment method will make your work more convenient and reach a more diverse source of customers and the best part is that you don't have to go to the bank to deal with late transfers or limit increases like you did. This has been thoroughly solved by bitcoin.

But I want to tell you, bitcoin payments are irreversible, so you and your customers should make sure the address is correct before making a bitcoin transfer, otherwise you won't have a chance to get them back.

One of the reason why Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin is to make it decentralized where people can use it as a payment method in a decentralized manner. Bitcoin is meant to excludes various bank processes that could an account holder tired of kewping money in the bank. Bitcoin is here to stay to we'll have to embrace it more and appreciate the creator.

I have also used Bitcoin for many payment of services and I never regretted of getting to know about Bitcoin at the first place. Since it is decentralized, we all can make countless transactions without anybody querying us of how we are spending our money. The government has no power to freeze or reduce our transactions limit which is why it is a free world.

that's so nice to hear, it takes some guts to make such a decision, a lot of people are still skeptical about Bitcoin and they are afraid of getting in trouble with the government for doing that, it's what's stopping a lot of businesses of accepting bitcoin as a payment method, thank God it worked out pretty well with you, good luck on the upcoming years, wish you more success.

We've heard here a lot of stories about Bitcoin acceptance as a payment on their place and I hope they understand how volatile Bitcoin is to know possible risks on the price.  Glad to hear a story like this, it will help the community of Bitcoin go strong and give awareness to the people in your place.  But one thing just to make sure, understand how Bitcoin works because it's very crucial in your business, all transactions are irreversible, once you've hit the send button and have at least 3 confirmations on the network, you can't undo it.

However, it always has an advantage if we've knowledgable about it, I suggest you study it.
Good luck with your business.

I don't really mind if you switch to bitcoin payment but what I'm thinking is, do you really get a good number of customers paying in bitcoin since you even considered that accepting bitcoin is a great life-changing decision? If that so, then your country or place do have lots of crypto-oriented people.

I also don't understand how you went through a difficult process with your bank. Maybe there are really problems at your side that you need to address as there will be a time that it might question the legality of your business.

You are also in business for 4 years and that should not be a problem.

More than likely, he already knew the risks involved when it comes to crypto market. As he might have seen the up and down movements, he knows what he's getting into. Because he can always convert it to fiat upon receipt of crypto payment to avoid possible losses. Or he can wait, and exchange it when bitcoin is high. So exploring the crypto payment may give him benefits and it is up to him how he will prevent losses.

the risk is bitcoin's volatility but behind all that there are many advantages that can be utilized. transactions with bitcoins will be recorded in blockchain and no one will be able to delete them, transparent and accessible to anyone. those who accept bitcoin as a new payment method of course already know what bitcoin is and what the risks and advantages are. This is also related to regulatory issues in each country, the application of bitcoin must follow the regulations of the country they occupy. For countries that only provide regulation as a commodity, it is not allowed to be used as a means of payment other than Fiat.

I don't think this is important now. Having multiple payment methods or, having flexible payment methods will help your business because customers will help to choose what they preferred payment methods and also this is also a good help to introduce or advertise Bitcoin to other people especially those new ones without an idea how Bitcoin works, they will start be curious once they hear Bitcoin.

Adding more payment options gives the customers the choice and bitcoin payment option is something new to the market. So, even the user who doesn't know about it will try to know what it is all about. In that perspective bitcoin as payment is good according to me, and it doesn't bring revenue in a short. OP needs the patience to wait for customers paying him in cryptocurrencies. He have mentioned of more customers using it and learning to use it, but the market trend varies and the mind of customers too changes.

It seems that what you are doing is very good for the development of your store, if only all stores around the world used the method you use like this it must be very easy for everyone to shop using Bitcoin when they do not carry cash, surely everyone will prosper and all shops will definitely be crowded like your shop. But in some countries there are restrictions on the use of Bitcoin that have been implemented and have their own rules that must be respected by the nation itself. So, congratulations to you for allowing everyone to shop at your store with the payment method using Bitcoin.

Shopping is very easy for everyone even without cash, you can pay with credit or debit card, online transfer, mobile banking, etc, so making shopping easy will not be a reason why people will introduce bitcoin payment option. In my opinion, merchants who make that option available are mostly bitcoin users themselves and they want to help with adoption, or merchants that notice a rise in bitcoin users around them, so they try to make their business attractive to them by accepting bitcoin.

I don't know if op's shop is 'crowded' because of bitcoin payment method, or if it is crowded at all because he provided very little information about it, there is this reluctance in bitcoin users to spend bitcoins on things they can get with fiat that is inflationary, so right now the demand for bitcoin as a payment method isn't as high as bitcoin as an asset, so i don't think a shop will experience a significant increase in their customers because they now accept bitcoin.

Don't worry because I think they already know that. They made their research first before they use a thing that they are not familiar with because no one will like to put their business at risk. The op didn't mention that he has an issue about bitcoin's volatility but he said he can save more money using bitcoin. In terms of saving money, he can do that better if he will use a much stable currency or stable coins, if he don't want to use a bank again.

Btc's disadvantage other than volatility is like you said, transaction are irreversible but he isn't the one here that are making payments but it was his customer and in case there is an accident like his customer pays more money for one of his product, he can always return the excess money to them.

Great to hear your story! I too have recently joined this league and added a crypto payment option on my e-commerce website. Tbh, I was surprised to see the response from customers. Got so many crypto payments. Adding crypto payments has given customers a lot of flexibility and saved me from high transaction costs. I am paying 0.5% with capital wallet while bank transactions cost more than 1%.

I'm also glad to see that you've added a crypto payment option. Because over time everyone will get used to crypto payments if crypto can actually be legalized by all countries for payment terms and I'm sure every new thing set is for everyone's convenience. I would be very happy if in my place I could make payments via crypto because it would make it very easy for me to do so without any objections.

I think step by step when accepting bitcoin as legal currency payment transaction will give change for our costumer make research what is bitcoin and how to use bitcoin. Exactly they will research about what advantage and disadvantage when using bitcoin as transaction payment. But most important when accepting bitcoin as payment currency give little knowledge how to use bitcoin and what kinds of wallet easy when using bitcoin as transaction.

I think when OP have give little knowledge about bitcoin and their costumer made research actually they will know disadvantage about bitcoin as transaction payment, indirectly we have give the chance for investing assets when accepting bitcoin as payment currency transaction.

I agree with the overall idea of accepting Bitcoin for payments but the fear of some with Bitcoin as you have also alluded to is the volatility in price especially in a bear market season like this so this brings me to the point you made about hodlin for some months 4-5 months to be precise, this doesn't necessarily translate to profit if those months are in a bear season unless the merchant is able to hodl till a reverse market price trend.

Nice, great, and congratulations! It's a really a decision that you should be proud of and hopefully, the other businesses near you should do the same thing as you.
It all started with you and it will grow as a community for the other shoppers who are also bitcoin holders and enthusiasts who will have the means to pay for their goods with the use of bitcoin.

In accepting bitcoins, you cannot expect results as quickly as you think, but by accepting bitcoins, the opportunity will be given to him to reach a much wider audience than you think possible.

Not everyone always has cash on hand, not everyone has money in a bank account, so diversifying your payment methods is essential if you are running a business. Accepting bitcoin payments will not slow down your business but also open up opportunities for your business. why don't you like it?

If I adopt bitcoin as a means of payment then I must clearly inform them that I will charge an additional fee as tax for every item I sell/for every transaction that occurs. This is a crypto transaction tax which is already regulated in the regulation of my country's minister of finance. So everytime I want to convert bitcoin, then I have to pay tax for it. But I haven't seen any good potential about the legality of bitcoin as a legal tender in my country, so that's my assumption when the regulations change.

Nevertheless, there is always hope for the future about the increased adoption and legality of bitcoin as a legal tender in various countries. I know we need time, it's not going to happen anytime soon but there's always a good chance of it.

Volatility is the main concern of most people who want to use bitcoin as payment method. They could either benefit so much if the price position the moment they spend it is high or lose if the price position the moment they spend it is low. With this, a lot of people particularly the businessmen are thinking twice about acccepting it in their business because such deed could actually cost them.

But right now, I guess more and more people are already transitioning in modern ways like this, cryptocurrency payment. Although some people are still hesistant since like what you have said, bitcoin is an appreciative asset. And spending such hastily could make them regret later on. Adding the fact the transaction fees and processing time as well.

Currently different institution and organization now adopting the use of the crypto currency and this thing is in favor with us because most of us use the crypto for making a fast transactions with the less fess at the same time and became of the innovation of the block chain technology it now become a public to the community to make sure there's no transaction interrupted at the same time easier to trace with the use of the addresses plus the total mount or value given.

That's a good step, I want to do like you do, Bitcoin as a major factor in payments like you do, because my country is a bit constrained, so I can't do what you do.

We work smarter this days not harder, i would always accept payment for my services in bitcoin definitely, it's convenient, and unlike my local currency (naira) it is more solid in its value.
Bitcoin has been able to push the transactions department of any business forward there by making business work fast but still it has its challenges, true story an individual open a bar and started to accept bitcoin as the medium of payment, i guess he was new to crypto-currency because he couldn't detect a confirmed payment, he got robbed off 12, million naira ($28,000) through an unconfirmed transaction by a customer.

The point I am heading to is that accepting transactions and payment in crypto-currency to your business is just a step to improving your business and the adoption of crypto-currency. But you still have To also be security conscious about the risk involved.

Would you possibly be able to share with us what type of business you have (like in general, what field of business is it in like medical, automotive etc).  I'm curios as I think this can provide some insight into what types of industries might be a little more open to bitcoin payments.  Also, do you have any kind of figure of what percentage of your clients are paying in bitcoin? Regardless I love this!

I'm also interested in what kind of business he is having. In my place, There are some IT related stores (Computer Hardware stores/IT Services) in my local place that is currently accepting right now. They are surely aware of what our current technology is and I surely they have the knowledge and understanding about cryptocurrency that's why they are accepting it as a payment. Technology related businesses are what I commonly expect to have bitcoin payment adaptation.                                     

It would be nice to know more details about bitcoin adoption on his business. I also would like to know what was the impact of this adoption on this business: the percentage of customers paying in btc compared to the ones still paying in fiat, the percentage of people who didn't know bitcoin, but thanks to him have become enthusiasts and if accepting bitcoin as payment has created any issues with local regulators and authorities.

There are people who live in places where they have to pay taxes on certain times because that's when the taxes happen. Which means let's say you bought 10k dollars worth of bitcoin and it goes to 100k? Well, you pay 20% tax let's assume, which is 20k, but if you keep your bitcoin and it goes under 20k that means you literally made a loss AND paid taxes at the same time.

This means you shouldn't really be worried about just paying when you sell, that's even good. Taxing situation should be quite low, like stocks, or even forex, those are like 1/1000 taxes in my nation and that should be how it is, otherwise it is really hurting the crypto world when you pay too much taxes.

Every day there are new innovations and cutting-edge technology adapting to the times, I think the presence of bitcoin is actually very helpful for all people in terms of transactions, despite most of the main goals of adopting bitcoin as an investment tool, I think the ease of transactions when using bitcoin is actually very beneficial for large companies. Transactions using bitcoin can be carried out in large quantities, maybe different from fiat, especially transactions between countries, you must first convert local currency to dollar currency, but with bitcoin it is very easy in terms of transactions and the delivery process is quite fast via lightening.