Can legal pot businesses operate their businesses with cryptocurrency payments? What about many of the numerous ICOs that have issued tokens and raised funds for their decentralised projects.
Interested to hear your thoughts.
That's been the promise of Potcoin and all the other cannabis-related cryptocurrencies over the years. I still don't think we are at the point where it's feasible at scale, but we're getting there. I'm curious whether Bitpay is working with any marijuana dispensaries. I haven't seen any dispensaries accepting Bitcoin. With legalization at the state level in California taking effect next year, maybe Bitpay is a possibility.
As an industry-wide move (business-to-business), it simply won't be possible until more of the economy starts "getting off the grid" and moving their balance sheets partially or entirely into cryptocurrencies. I don't see that happening for several years.
Regardless of anything else, brick-and-mortar businesses can't depend on commodity speculation (and a never-ending bull market). They'll need to hedge (and also account for the 3rd party risk of doing so). In time, I think a more decentralized stable/pegged crypto will emerge. I'm not sure how it'll work, but people smarter than me are trying to figure it out. That will be a game changer for businesses who have significant overheads in fiat.
