Bitcoin Forum

Hey Crypto Crew,

So, I've been pondering the whole "Should Your Business Accept Bitcoin?" conundrum. 🤔 Some say it's the future, while others think it's just a fad. What's your take on this crypto rollercoaster? Share your thoughts on whether diving into the Bitcoin sea is a savvy move or a shipwreck waiting to happen. Personally, I'm torn between embracing the digital gold rush and sticking to the good ol' cash. Let's chat about the pros, cons, and the downright unpredictable nature of this crypto beast. Are you ready to sail the Bitcoin waves or prefer to anchor in traditional waters? Drop your two satoshis below and let's hash it out! ⚓🚀

I had a small business selling games and video games in my city, I promoted it and implemented one of the payment methods would be cryptocurrencies: bitcoin and tether. It gave discounts to anyone who used it.

And incredible as it may seem, there was zero adherence to this payment method. Nobody has ever used cryptocurrencies to buy anything, most people don't even know how to use them, very sad and in short: we still have a lot of work to do, especially in educating and guiding people close to us.

This is a much different question from the one in your topic title. Bitcoin can be the future but is not right as a means of payment for your business.
15 years down the road, I'll say fiat is more of the shipwreck waiting to happen, but it's still better for SMEs as a means of payment than BTC.

Do your personal analysis for your business;

• Is it an online or offline business?
• Is there a demand for an alternative means of payment?
• Is there any limitation using your current payment method?
• If you accept Bitcoin, do you plan to hodl it or convert to fiat immediately?

Accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment in your business can have advantages. It provides a way to attract a cool, young tech savvy customer base that prefer using crypto. It allows fast & cheap cross border transactions because there are no intermediaries involved. To accept Bitcoin can increase your brand's visibility & appeal. There are a few drawbacks. Bitcoin's volatility can pose a risk as its value can fluctuate a lot. It might require additional time & effort to set up and manage a Bitcoin payment system. The limited acceptance of Bitcoin as a payment method may restrict its usefulness for some customers.

I will consider bitcoin payment in the future, wherein I think Most people are engaging in this digital money but for now? I will stick to the traditional way of payment. I know that it depends to a nature of the business but come to think if it, Not all person has a bitcoin or aware about it especiamly those elders so We should consider them especially that they are your costumers.

In my opinion Dear, It can be a good step to accept Bitcoin For that business as it has many advantages like we can easily send and receive our business payments across borders and On the other hand, we also know that El Salvador Country has already accepted Bitcoin as their legal currency they have a massive amount of Bitcoin in their reservation for their economy stability which gives us a fair signal that their maybe alot of business who already have accepted Bitcoin for their business.

A couple of months ago, I was watching a video on social media in which kids were paying their bills off using Bitcoin in stoshies which also leads many other businessmen to accept Bitcoin for their business through the video. We all know that Bitcoin is now the most strongest currency for now and give it a fair time it will show us the real potential after this bull run. After this event, many of other disbelievers starts believing in Bitcoin :D Just give it time

If I had some business in my city, I would have accepted bitcoins for the customer's payment and might gonna give them some discount for bitcoin promotions as well. But take note, this is not something you can just do lightly because it will always depend on what country you are residing in and what kind of people are there because sometimes when you are found with the government, others will envy you and they will look for any flaw that will gonna makes your business crash. so before doing anything like it, you should consider checking everything including the people if they are familiar with bitcoins or not or should you make a survey first.

It would honestly depend on the business owner himself and his goals

Is his goal to make the most profit possible or to spread the use of bitcoin even further? What is the nature of the business? Does he want to acquire bitcoin or fiat money? It might seem unfair that by paying in bitcoin, the price of the goods and services to be sold will also depend on the price of bitcoin but if your goal is to have bitcoin i think it is ok to accept bitcoin at least you already have something to hold

I think this depends on many factors such as is bitcoin legal in your country? Do people in your area use bitcoin regularly?...You should learn, evaluate all relevant factors and make decisions for your business. If accepting bitcoin for businesses is beneficial, why would you ignore it?
After all, bitcoin is a currency and can be a means of payment, and adding more payment methods to businesses will benefit us, not harm us. Why do we ignore them?

There are some people complaining about accepting bitcoin for their business and it doesn't bring any benefits, but that doesn't mean it will happen to you, too. It's better to experience it yourself and don't listen to them. Just like many people lose money investing in bitcoin, but that doesn't mean everyone will fail like them, a lot of people are making a lot of money investing in bitcoin.

That's the issue. The Bitcoin literacy is still very low despite the promotion. There are still a lot of people who do not know anything about Bitcoin, let alone how to use it.
The few that know about it might not want to transact using Bitcoin considering the transaction fee they will incure in the process, so they rather pay with fiat.

First, this depends on your country, whether your country legalizes bitcoin as a transaction currency or not, if your country legalizes it then you can try it. You can use bitcoin as an alternative payment currency. If you only use bitcoin, then it is a careless action because bitcoin is still taboo and not yet familiar as a payment currency.

Second, it depends on what business you do. If your business provides cheap goods then using Bitcoin is less effective, transaction costs become expensive. Better business activities in the digital sector that allow your consumers to buy from across borders, using bitcoin will make transaction costs cheaper and more effective than other currencies.

Accepting bitcoin as a means of payment is a thing of choice and you can decide to accept bitcoin but the issue here is no one will love to pay with bitcoin or they don't even know about bitcoin, the area you find yourself matters a lot and where is your business located?, what do you even sell cause I don't think petty traders will get involved in bitcoin payment.
Have only seen such in the mall and supermarket and it's still very rare seeing someone paying with bitcoin. A competitor can accept bitcoin as a means of payment due to competition among marketers but the consumers will not pay with bitcoin, even some crypto enthusiast will see such and choose to pay with fiat.

Exactly.

Though it looks cool seeing outside your store saying "Bitcoin payment available here". In my opinion, even if people who are buying in your shop has bitcoin, they would not use it to pay something that could be buy using fiat, even me, as much as possible, if it could be buy using fiat, I'll use fiat because bitcoin is an investment for me.

In general, Bitcoin is quite well known and is also liked by many groups nowadays, where these groups also often use cash in their respective lives. So what makes some people feel confused about accepting Bitcoin in their own lives or in their own business is because they are afraid of losses, even though that is only when they sell at low prices.

Meanwhile, for those who are sure to save it well enough, they will never experience losses or sink like you said, because everyone can see the reality that exists through Bitcoin itself from the first ATH to the next ATH within a period of once every four years. And for the puzzle that is in your head, I don't think there is any need to debate the pros and cons as long as you can still use cash while holding Bitcoin indefinitely and being distracted by the presence of Bitcoin into your own life.

We also have this issue, if you have fiat and bitcoin you will always prefer to pay with fiat, as it is the currency that depreciates the most over time.

Although our job is to propagate and encourage the use of bitcoin in everyday life, we are faced with one of its main fundamentals, which is capital protection, and this ultimately discourages people from spending it.

If you want your business to accept Bitcoin payments, it all depends on whether your country is Bitcoin-friendly or not. And also are there many Bitcoin users around you and are there several merchants or shops that use Bitcoin payments?
And what I mentioned will support you to accept Bitcoin as payment for your business, and if we talk about the future of Bitcoin. In my opinion, Bitcoin will be much more useful, apart from many people accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment, Bitcoin will also become very expensive.
So the best choice now is how and in whatever way we can accumulate Bitcoin for the future, and besides the profits that can be obtained and the benefits of Bitcoin are also very large in the future.

There have been many threads talking about this issue and many people have also accepted bitcoin for their business.  But the problem that bitcoin is facing is that the transaction fees are very high and I don't think it will be fixed any time soon . I'm not against accepting bitcoin for businesses , but we can't deny that bitcoin transaction fees are a big problem that needs to be solved first. Therefore, you need to consider carefully before making the final decision . Additionally , you need to consider other factors as everyone mentioned above , such as the legality and popularity of bitcoin in your country .

I completely agree with you, but I would also like to add that due to the volatility of bitcoin, it would not be right to use it in B2B sales. Since B2B has a time difference between invoicing and payment

The high transaction fee currently, have discouraged a lot of businesses that accepts bitcoin to stop accepting bitcoin. If you must accept bitcoin in your business, it should be an alternative payment method and Fiat should be the first because we don't know if the high transaction fee will last for long and I believe that if it didn't last for long, there is high probability that it will still happen in future, until bitcoin devs look for a way to get rid of ordinals from the blockchain. Accepting bitcoin is an advantage because you will have more customers than businesses that accepts only fiat because customers can use any payment method of their choice. You can also keep your profit in bitcoin after payment and convert the capital to fiat due to the volatile nature of bitcoin.

I am still not working for that now because my business is too small to be affected of fluctuations and and how high the fees like now.

But if one time that I will accept something from crypto then this will not only for bitcoin but I will accept altcoins also because this is the safest and fair for every businesses and yes I am for good business and not just an investor.

Why this discussion need to be a debate in the first place? you're just accepting Bitcoin as your payment alternative, not stop to use fiat and only accept Bitcoin!

There's nothing change, your business are still same business, it's up to the customer to pay using fiat or Bitcoin.

Seems like you're just want to exaggerate the simple question instead of think using common sense.

I have debated about this before in some topic about Ferrari's acceptance of Bitcoin. I said it would be useless unless Ferrari offered large discounts if the payment was made through Bitcoin. Because why would someone do Fiat -> Buy Bitcoin -> Pay Ferrari with Bitcoin, if they could do a simple transaction of Fiat -> Pay Ferrari with Fiat?

If a user doesn't need the kind of efficiency or the censorship-resistance that Bitcoin offers, then it won't be used. To be truly used effectively, Bitcoin is a special kind of currency for "special" kinds of uses although you can still use it for "coffee-transactions".

More payment options mean more potential customers. If you don't pay fixed money monthly to have this or that payment option, what do you lose by simply including as many options as possible? Nothing. Bitcoin and many alternative coins are getting popular every day, if you include major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, litecoin, ripple, monero, bitcoin cash, tron, matic, you might get some new customers who will happily buy from you because you offer them these payment options. You might also get a crypto enthusiast customer who bought from your store because you offered cryptocurrencies to them as a payment option.
The only cons that I can think about accepting them is that cryptos are very volatile and you have to be careful to not experience loss in USD value if that's what you prioritize. And when you control private keys of your crypto wallets, you have all the responsibility on your shoulders to not lose them or else they'll be gone forever.

You don't have to rush into what you don't have information about. Bitcoin can be used for different purposes which include as a form of payment or Investment. Using it as a form of payment will depend on some factors which include
1. The type of business you are operating: It is easy to receive Bitcoin payment for services that are related to cryptocurrencies.
2. Customer request: Bitcoin payment will be effective if you have a large number of customers who are requesting that you include it as an alternative means of payment.
3. Government policy: If your country is friendly with Bitcoin there will always be favourable policies that promote its awareness and adoption. On the contrary, an unfriendly government might make this idea dormant.

Currently, many people are rushing to buy Bitcoin because they want to make a profit from it. It is important to know that it is a long-term investment that needs patience and bravery. If you don't have these two quantities, you might end up entering the trap called FUD. It is also important to note that just like every other Investment, putting money into Bitcoin is risky. However, the risk of worth taking if you understand the market.

Did I just hear you saying a shipwreck or whatever, what then are you going to say it altcoins if bitcoin is becoming like this to you, fourteen year of consistencies is not easy, but Incase you're not yet sure of what bitcoin is, know this for now that this digital currency has come to stay, it's already a legal tender in two countries and an acceptable legal means of making payments across all part of the globe, having a little slide on the history of bitcoin could give you more insight on what bitcoin really is and how it can help the economy develope in it's financial aspect.

Accepting bitcoin as a payment method and fiat at the same time will provide its consumers varieties of mode of payment. That way, if they’ll find convenient paying in cash or in bitcoin, at least they’ll have choices to make.

However, the reason why I should accept bitcoin in my business simply because it’s the trend now, and majority of the consumers find it more convenient and satisfying having a cashless payment that makes the transaction easier and faster compared to fiat/cash transaction. It also proves that you are ready to adopt the digital world by encouraging cashless payment like bitcoin than to get stuck with traditional/cash payment.

Accepting Bitcoin as payment is not a bad thing, but if you have a small business then you should keep these things in mind first and then accept Bitcoin as payment- In first you should be aware of Bitcoin's high volatility, and sometimes it also contains high transaction fees. And if you see all over world then Bitcoin has less adoption from the others traditional currencies.
Even then most important thing is the region you are living does their regulatory support Bitcoin? Considering all the above, if you think you can run your business well by accepting Bitcoin, you can adopt a different policy if there is price volatility. If it doesn't affect your business then I think you can accept Bitcoin in your business as well as have alternative options.

Its very good that you've that payment option on your site. it spreads the awareness of such possibility. If most of the vendors of E-commerce and entertainment websites can emulate such, the gospel will be spread at a wider margin. Its true people are not using it for now, but you need to remain optimistic and not remove it. One other thing I'll suggest for you is to put a link to maybe a tutorial on bitcoin and how to make crypto transactions there. Who knows?, people might pick interest in watching the video and possibly develop more interest in crypto and join the community soon.

One thing I've come to understand is that the more people see a new thing, they tend to develop interest over time and begin asking questions, upon convincing themselves that its legitimate, they tend to try it out. If the new stuff  favors them, they spread the gospel and more adopters follow. One major setback bitcoin is having is that most people put up crypto sites for scam purpose and it increase the fear people have for crypto transactions.

It's more like asking if a business should accept money in exchange for it's service. Bitcoin is also money but more on the decentralized side of things.

England as a country made regulated policies to ensure that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies can be accepted as a medium of payment for transactions and even sales. It is now left for the business owners to have an understanding and knowledge of how to use/accept Bitcoin as payments, how to accumulate Bitcoin and HoDL effectively, and also how to  trade Bitcoin if quick side profit is imagined too.

it depends on the customer and what the regulations regarding bitcoin are in a country. in my country, sellers and buyers are not allowed to transact using anything other than fiat currency. this means that the use of bitcoin and altcoins for business here is completely prohibited by the government because this will disrupt the flow of fiat in the economy.

and currently very few customers want to make transactions using bitcoin because of the high fees and waiting times of up to 10 minutes just to complete 1 transaction. this deters many customers from using bitcoin in their transactions.

so these two things are considerations for business owners whether they want to accept bitcoin or not.

Exactly, I agree with you!

For bitcoin to be used on a daily basis, it is necessary to have some type of incentive, good discounts, gifts and whatever the creativity of the marketing sector defines.

Today everyone has fiat, this is the current standard and the vast majority don't want to go through all the trouble of exchanging fiat for bitcoins without any benefit just to acquire something that they can simply use fiat and the result will be the same.

Without some kind of real incentive for it to be used, people will continue to prefer spending fiat rather than adopting bitcoins as a form of payment like fiat money is today.

In my own view, there are benefits to accepting bitcoin as payment for business, but there are also some things to think about. This could be advantageous because some customers may prefer using cryptocurrencies for the purchases they make. In my opinion, bitcoin has the potential to become widely recognized globally, making it a speedier and more effective option for international payments. This is particularly relevant if you intend to operate a large business.
However, you also need to think about your customers who do not know how to use bitcoin or are unfamiliar with it. Thus, as a businessman, you may have to put in a lot of effort teaching them how to conduct the transaction. Also, keep in mind that the price of your goods or services may fluctuate considerably due to bitcoin's volatility. For this reason, you might need to think about ways to reduce this kind of risk.
And lastly, as every business owner does, you need to comply with any legal and regulatory requirements related to accepting cryptocurrencies at your place. This was just merely subjective, and our views and opinions might help you to think broadly before taking action.
 

Deciding on crypto for your business is tricky. Bitcoin's cool, but it still has its ups and downs. Think about your risk tolerance, who you're selling to, and where you wanna go long term. Mix things up like throw in some old-school cash too. If you can swing it, why not dive into the crypto pool right? It might draw in the tech crowd, but keep an eye on those market waves.

When we talk about business we are talking about profits and losses. It is either you are making profit in business or you are always losing and whether you are making profits or you are losing is a product of the decisions you make in your business. The decision to accept Bitcoin in your business is not what the business owner is supposed to take independently. The first question that will arise or that needs an urgent attention is whether or not the people that will patronize your business will actually need Bitcoin. Even if it is proven that bitcoin is actually the feature of finance, you do not actually need to incorporate it as a payment method for your business if your customers are not digital. Again, even if your customers are digital customers and they would actually accept using bitcoin as a means of payment, as a business owner how do you intend handling the volatility of Bitcoin. I mean what happens if the money plenty to you by a customer drops up to 4% in the next day that we were supposed to return to market.
Apart from that we have seen the recent mess in the Bitcoin mempool. If things continue to get messy who will pay the gross transaction fee of Bitcoin. If you also decide to use the normal transaction fee your business money could stock in the memory pool of Bitcoin network for weeks which is very detrimental to the growth of any business. I sincerely advice that you should take a sample opinion of your customers in the form of questionnaire to know if actually you need to implement Bitcoin payment gateway or you will stick to the traditional system of payment..

It doesn't feel like a dilemma or a conundrum to me. There are no major downsides to make the decision hard to make, IMO, and it's not a dilemma because you can easily do both (accept Bitcoin and traditional fiat payments). Bitcoin fees can be a challenge when it comes to small purchases, but if a business has an online shop and sells something that costs, say, over $50, people can just send the payments to a Bitcoin address if they want to. Of course, a business can also try to adopt a second-layer solution, although that requires a bit more work and research. If there are no taxation difficulties with this kind of payment, I don't see a reason not to accept Bitcoin.

That's right, don't implement bitcoin as a payment or to your business if you know your business can't handle it. You see, the implementation of bitcoin as a payment by customers has a process or a long way of thinking because bitcoin has or is volatile, so every day or every moment its price is changing, and if your business can't sustain the decrease in price in bitcoin then you will not have enough money to circulate in your business. Maybe if your business can handle it or is prepared for it, you can just hold the bitcoin and wait for its increase in profit. It's okay, mate. As you said, your business is still small. Keep on growing your business first, and then when the time comes, you can offer the services of bitcoin. It will not be easy, but it's doable. Keep on grinding until you get what you've desired for your business.

Also, think of the reason why you are accepting crypto, is just because of the hype surrounding it,
or you have strong belief on this market? Your sentiments towards this market is important as well as your knowledge.
This decision is entirely yours, weigh your reasons and why you are going this route?
Also, you can still accept your old payment methods, it doesn't mean you will stop accepting cash, btc payment method should just be one of your additional options.