Bitcoin Forum

Link to news
https://news.bitcoin.com/ukrainian-pharmacy-chain-introduces-cryptocurrency-payments/

Ukrainian pharmacy chain ANC will now allow customers to pay by crypto like bitcoin. Another good move towards global crypto adoption. Hope much more companies start doing the same in the year 2023.

According to the statement what they plan to do is to start accepting payment directly using Binance Pay which is another means of promoting the Centralized exchange Binance.
If they truly want to promote the use of crypto and add safety why doing so, they should make an effort by getting a hardware wallet which they can generate a QR code for the receiving address print and paste it around the shop, so that customers can just scan the address and make payment. their is no doubt that Binance Pay will be faster in receiving payment of its also too risky since they don't have the key to the wallet.
"Not Your Key Not your coin"

This will be a great first step for crypto because previously ukraine has also tried to accept donations due to the war using bitcoin, so I think the ukraine government is starting to openly and understand if bitcoin and crypto have a bigger function than just investment, even though in the law has stated that so far Ukraine has not allowed transactions using crypto directly, but now after that the many benefits of crypto have been felt by Ukraine since the war occurred then I think Ukraine may soon follow in Salvador footsteps to adopt crypto or bitcoin globally in the country later.

Oh wow, this is pretty big. As a Ukrainian, I can tell you that it's indeed one of the major pharmacies in Ukraine, available widely in various regions (you can see the regions covered and the sheer number of their pharmacies here: https://anc.ua/map). The info on the website of the pharmacy network says that it's via Binance Pay, and currently from online orders (click and collect ones) but they will gradually start accepting crypto payments in the pharmacies as well. I know it's not ideal that it's via a centralized exchange, but I don't think it's because they want to promote it specifically. Rather, it's because Binance is already popular in Ukraine, it is a reputable service, and it's easy to integrate its payment system, I assume, for purchases. It's a good first step, a very good one. And keep in mind that with the war, pharmacies are especially important.

It's also quite expected, I don't think a company in a war zone would be able alone to deal with direct crypto payments, so thinking of paying directly with bitcoin is probably daydreaming, but still, it's Binance, and I have a feeling they will again put their fake bitcoin and stable coins on top of the bitcoin payment option.
Also, from the press release:


This needs to change but probably Ukraine has 1 million more important things to do right now.

This is good news for crypto and Bitcoin because more and more people are willing to accept Bitcoin for payment and I think they are starting to like Bitcoin after getting to know it a bit more. But I just went straight to the website of the news source you shared and read about this that the Pharmacy has just introduced cryptocurrency payments using Binance Pay (https://news.bitcoin.com/ukrainian-pharmacy-chain-introduces-cryptocurrency-payments/) which was just implemented two days ago.

But there is another piece of news just made by news.bitcoin.com (https://news.bitcoin.com/hackers-hit-romanian-hospital-demand-bitcoin-ransom/) which is that Hackers Hit Romanian Hospitals, and Demand Bitcoin Ransom so computer specialists from the Investigation Directorate of Organized Crime and Terrorism as well as experts working for Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender are unable to decrypt the information the.

Funnily enough, a DeFi project on the Terra network named Anchor(with ticker ANC) pumped near the time that Binance's CZ posted this tweet: https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1610292474714656770

Probably just a coincidence, but LOL.

https://i.imgur.com/nsWYSEk.png

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/anchor-protocol

There is no such thing as a reputable centralized exchange. There are only centralized exchanges that haven't gone under or run away yet.
Another negative thing about news like this is that usually the payment processors sell the cryptocurrency they receive right away and pay the merchant with fiat. This means they aren't really receiving cryptocurrency, they receive fiat.
The only positive thing is for users who want to pay with cryptocurrency and now they can.

Nice to hear firsthand experience from real user. That is the beauty of internet forums , we have people from all over the world sharing their experiences with other members.

I feel we are a long way away from companies like this accepting BTC directly without any third party service, whenever there is news of a big company that is now accepting BTC, it always comes with a separate clause that may not be pleasant to 'real bitcoiners'. The binance pay thingy in the whole story kind of takes the fun out of it, but i think people who already use Binance before now should go on and pay through this way if they want to use a crypto payment option, but they shouldn't forget that Binance is an exchange, and shouldn't be their self custody wallet. But for those who haven't already registered on Binance ever before, i wouldn't advise them to lose their privacy for this.
Many crypto's do not have the utility or value to be a currency, they are mostly tools for Gambling. BTC is a valid currency though and the greater mass adoption gets, the more institutions would wanna have it as one of their payment option.

Ukraine is not as well known to have tons of crypto users so why is Ukraine pharms trying to adopt Binance Pay? And they are not actually accepting crypto but fiat if they use Binance Pay.

They are helping Binance to make it a global monopoly. CZ is not a very clever person also, he sure would be keeping the KYC very tight with Binance Pay.

No, not a coincidence, some users started using #AMC, bots detected the term and that good things were associated with it so orders started flowing, by the time some misled users tried to buy in already there was a price movement so they just added a little more fire to the hype of FOMO or whatever.
Bots that monitor social platforms or news headlines have been around for a while, so not surprising.

But what's more worrying is that it's a coin that nearly got wiped out when Luna crashed and even the team behind it has gone silent since June last year  :D, so some bought the shitcoin fo shitcoins based on a failed (terra) network.
I just hope that Apple launching some device called iFan won't trigger some buys in one of the largest scams ever.

I doubt that this chain of pharmacies has a qualified person who understands cryptocurrencies. Why look for and hire another employee to deal with this when there is already a ready-made solution from Binance exchange? I assume that it was their specialists who helped to implement such a function and will monitor the work of this function in the future.

I discourage this but there are some very smart people making good money following latest trends and news in crypto market.

What makes you think that there are few cryptocurrency users in Ukraine? Where is this information coming from? I, for example, found other information. For example, here is the information provided by UNCTAD (https://unctad.org/news/unctad-spells-out-actions-curb-cryptocurrencies-developing-countries) for the year 2021. In the graph you can see that Ukraine is in the first place by the share of population that owns cryptocurrencies. And here you can see (https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership-data/) the percentage of the population that owns cryptocurrencies as of January 4, 2023.

There ain't no new GitHub commits since the last 7 months either, so it's not like only the Twitter account has been abandoned.

Funnily enough — say all you want about marketcaps being misleading, but it still has a whopping $11.8m marketcap despite it pretty much being abandoned; and with a $7m trading volume since the last 24 hours on Binance. Unbelievable, to say the least.

This is good news to see that cryptocurrency is spreading to the ends of the earth and it have also been accepted as am alternative method of payment by the pharmacy chain in Ukraine. It shows that in few years from now crypto acceptance will in so many countries,btc will be more valuable. The pharmacy is making a big mistake to align with Binance for payment, this is a centralized system and can't be trust,I will suggest the pharmacy should use a decentralized system like btc for their payment, if not their funds will get lost someday which might lead to downfall of the pharmacy

This news is exciting. Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has accepted various digital currencies for war aid. Therefore, in Ukraine, everyone still respects the use of digital currencies as a way to preserve the value of assets. Therefore, various application scenarios will continue to emerge in the future.

The idea of using binance as a means of direct payment is no big deal to me as i long foresaw it. Do not forget the role binance played  in donating $10,000,000 for the Ukraine government during the much heated Russian / Ukraine war here  (http://here). I will not argue with the fact that in the future, the Ukraine government would want to repay binance a favour for their kind gesture during their hard time buy donating such amount of money through crypto payment hence they might likely make binance or give the a mouth watery offer to support the organisation in the name of implementing crypto payment in their country.

That could've been great news if it wasn't about Binance. People have to use a centralized exchange to be able to buy pharmacies, I don't see it as a great thing. There could be different ways to solve it better.

Am aware of the support Binance gave to Ukraine, am not also against Binance, using Binance to receive crypto since it's a faster means through Binance pay also not a bad idea for business.. where I won't encourage and will always advice people is saving and leaving your crypto holding on centralized exchange be it Binance or any other Exchange... I also receive pay with Binance pay which after confirmation I move out my asset to a secure wallet which I have the key to.

Where do you get information and can say that Ukraine does not have many crypto users.
If you have been in the cryptocurrency industry for a long time, surely you already know that everyone who uses or uses crypto will always hide their data, even the identity of the country or place where they live.
We don't know what's really going on in Ukraine and we don't know for sure at the moment how many crypto users there are, so I think going forward we have to be more selective in giving each response.

This is another achievement for bitcoin and for Ukraine towards crypto adoption. And I know since it’s a pharmacy, people will surely patronize it knowing pharmacy establishments will always be essential for a country. And knowing Ukraine, it’s a crypto friendly country and that majority of the citizens are already aware on crypto as a mode of payment so it won’t be hard for any establishment to accept crypto or bitcoin in particular as a payment method.

Ever since the war the visibility crypto market have got among the Russian and Ukrainian people is very high. Ukranian pharmacy chain starting to accept crypto payment is really a good move, but this couldn't bring more users towards it. Because, Ukranian people have prioritised crypto as an investment than a regular transaction source after more people using it a source to escape war crisis prevailing in the country.

This sucks. If they will just be strict to use Binance Pay, accepting cryptocurrency seems useless because they are centralized. Maybe if they have some option, the better. Like using a lightning network if they are worried about the transaction fee or speed.
I think they have a reason why they are using Binance Pay, still sucks for me.

Ukrainian pharmacy chain introduced crypto payments via binance pay I think this is a very wise step, right as you said we can't detect people using crypto currency, not to detect people from other countries using crypto currency to detect friends alone is difficult, because people who are already involved in bitcoin are sure to hide their identities, because they follow directions from the founder of the cryptocurrency, namely Satoshi.

From what was introduced pharmacies in Ukraine that accepting crypto payments can have a good and positive impact, where more and more people will start using and adopting crypto as a medium of exchange or investment asset in Ukraine.

Therefore, in my previous opinion, I said that we must always be selective in giving a comment or response because we do not know and it is not certain that the response we give is correct. Do not let us just give someone a fake or useless response.

I believe the country and it's citizens Started accepting crypto and Binance in particular not for the shake of promoting crypto only or because of the love they have for crypto but because they want to render the small support that they can to appreciate the 10M$ Binance donated to them during the war.

Is that how Binance Pay works?
Never used Binance myself so I've no idea.

I get why businesses and charities often prefer to use payment providers instead of "being their own bank",
but it's the first time I hear something about the need to download and install an app from a specific payment provider to pay them.
There's no need to install f.e. a bitpay-app, or coinbase-app to pay some merchants, or donate to NGOs who are using bitpay or coinbase.