On merchants not willing to accept crypto

[deisik]

You are absolutely right.

If you are willing to spend money in exchange for a good or service, be it fiat or bitcoin, there is someone out there who will accept it. Now, while millionaires can buy anything they like in bitcoin by throwing enough money at it, the average person here isn't going to be able to convince some big supermarket or chain to start accepting bitcoin, but they could certainly have success in smaller independent retailers or tradespeople. After me asking every week for a month or so, one of the sellers at my local farmers' market started to accept bitcoin, and now he isn't the only one accepting it and I'm not the only one spending it.

Stop waiting for retailers to accept crypto and start asking them to accept crypto. Holding won't get us anywhere if no one is spending.

Although cryptocurrency has a lot of potential to consider so to speak, you can't really blame those merchants or shops that are adamant and hesitant to accept cryptocurrencies as payment mostly for their goods and services. I mean, as a merchant or marketer, you have to shed off a good amount of capital to do business, and more capital to sustain it, and if you would rely at something that is actually unreliable and has changing values more often than not, it might affect your business big time. There's nothing better than having cold hard cash that everyone knows and accepts

You don't take into account everything that counts here

Basically, you are assuming that people across the world have inflation rates like 3-4% annually. While it is certainly true for countries like US, Japan (with its perpetual deflation) and the Eurozone, this is definitely not so with respect to the rest of the world. In many countries inflation is times greater than that, and in some of them it lies in the region of double and triple digits (not even speaking of Venezuela here). So how are merchants making business in the countries where fiat money is even less reliable than Bitcoin and far from "cold hard cash" unless you actually mean a cold corpse in rigor mortis as cash?

[satosibtc1000]

[...]

bitcoin is very volatile, such high volatility becomes a major barrier for merchants to accept bitcoin as a means of payments.

Imagine that in December 2017, some merchant accepted bitcoin as a means of payment, the merchant would be selling a car for $100,000, if in December 2017 someone had bought this car that costs $100,000, that person would have paid with 5 BTC and if that  car salesman  Hold the 5 BTCs, how much losses should he have these days?

Current bitcoin price:

1 BTC = $ 3560

5 BTC = $ 17,800

merchants will be afraid of this volatility

Bitcoin has not been legalized in many countries, so it would be difficult to have many merchants accepting bitcoin as a means of payment

On the one hand you are right the price is not stable, but bitcoin can be easily controlled in a regular currency. In General, it is best to take it and keep it when the price of bitcoin is low. You can make a profit out of it.

[cfif123]

Try not to accept it as a strange way of dealing with merchants. But some reasons come from governments that forbid it to cause traders to worry about breaking the law. You see they always want to seek profits, but they fear the government controls them and their jobs will threaten.

for me because traders don't want to lose at current market prices so traders reject crypto my feelings are more or less and I feel like looking at such traders and reasoning like that too

[deisik]

-snip-
not get enough Bitcoin business to justify the effort to support it.   

Out of curiosity, what would those hidden costs be?
Staff trained once, retains the knowledge. Wallets are free so as participation in the network. Legal help also is paid once.
What is that that I'm missing? 

You are missing quite a few factors at play here

All in all, you are missing a good reality check if I can say so (no offense intended, just in case). Staff come and go, and still more so for big retailers. Therefore, you can't really expect to train them once. It is typically twice, thrice, and more times. The same is also true with respect to legal help as regulation, and Bitcoin regulation in particular, is rapidly changing, so it is not a "shoot and forget" thing either. In this way, without constant inflow of cryptobuyers, it may be not worth the deal after all. And maybe, you are missing something else here

[tenakha]

[...]

bitcoin is very volatile, such high volatility becomes a major barrier for merchants to accept bitcoin as a means of payments

I don't particularly disagree with your points

However, if you are a big merchant with thousands of clients paying or willing to pay with Bitcoin, you can either mass-hedge directly against price volatility (this will cost you around 1% yearly at max) or use third party services that specifically deal with this issue. Besides, we should keep in mind that with expansion of Bitcoin adoption volatility is set to taper off eventually as real value, which comes through such use, takes away from volatility just like speculative value adds to it

I do not think any technique can easily stand against price volatility. If it was easy, none of us would lose

It is in fact quite easy

Most of us are not doing this because a) we simply don't know how b) hedging against volatility means we are sacrificing future profits via "buying low selling high". But for merchants and producers (who are not interested in speculation), it is a working strategy which is widely used everywhere in the world (I'm not talking about crypto specifically here). If you want to hedge against future price change, you can hedge with futures or options. With crypto, you just open a short position equal to the amount held. In that case, you are 100% protected from any price move, though, as I said, you can also kiss goodbye to your profits as well

In others it is possible, because the price is not so volatile. In my opinion everything is not what you said, for instance if you have a big percent of market you can go against price volatility that moves 100 pip up and 100 pips down in 1 hour. And here, not naturalness, your laws are valid and this is not welcome by any investor and you will lose anyway.

[drumamat]

We're trying to fix that problem https://allforcrypto.org    .There many issues we have to overcome due.Cryptos user our generally all talk and very tribal.They say they what something but when you offer it to then they don't use it. People only concern is will it increase the price of their particular coin, not that actual adoption. That why we focusing our marketing to non crypto disgruntled ebay amazon sellers .

You are certainly right. Alas, the majority is interested only in increasing the value of their coins.Under these conditions, it is difficult to attract a large number of merchants who want to accept Bitcoin as payment.We need some kind of impetus for large-scale adoption of cryptocurrencies by both sellers and buyers.

[deisik]

some merchants aren't willing to accept crypto the main reason is that of the uncertainty of prices in the crypto market keep fluctuations so merchants are afraid to accept crypto currencies

There is no logic in that given how many fiat currencies are in a perpetual inflation loop

Businesses are profit-oriented and they typically leave no stone unturned to sell more goods and services, so if Bitcoin payments allow them to attract more consumers and thus bring more profits, they should be all in. Of course, if there are regulations that prevent this, they might not want to risk their business but other than that, there is absolutely no reason for businesses to decline Bitcoin payments

[CryptoKush]

I think that Bitcoin users are not in a hurry to spend Bitcoins now. The price of Bitcoin is now too low to spend. Therefore, there is no demand for payment for goods using cryptocurrency.

[BitHodler]

I think that Bitcoin users are not in a hurry to spend Bitcoins now. The price of Bitcoin is now too low to spend. Therefore, there is no demand for payment for goods using cryptocurrency.

There are always people ready to spend their coins, regardless of what the price is. If no one ever spent a satoshi there wouldn't be any revenue being generated by payment gateways.

BitPay, while not many people seem to like that service because of their political position, has generated over $1 billion in revenue last year, and that while the price continued to go down month after month.

I'm not aware of what Coinbase generated in revenue last year from its merchant side, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is a few hundred million in total considering their level of adoption.

[Argoo]

It seems to me that this is a matter of time, and after about five years, we will see that Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies can be paid in all corners of the planet.

Now for the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a means of payment really just did not come the time. Here everyone is a little right. No need to run in front of the cart. On the one hand, the cryptocurrency is still imperfect and very difficult for mass use. On the other hand, there is not enough of its legalization on the part of states. Without this, the business structure does not want to accept them. They need clear rules of settlement in cryptocurrency for normal relations with the tax service and audit. How will the business structures in a few months prove to the tax authorities at what price in the cryptocurrency they sold the goods, if the price in the cryptocurrency has changed thousands of times during this time? In business, all this should be clearly stated. And the owner of the cryptocurrency still does not know what to do with it, or keep it, because over time it can grow in price, or use it as a means of payment. In due course all these problems will settle down and everything will work as a streamlined clock mechanism.
Now just until it is time for this.

[pooya87]

there is no lack of merchants ready to accept crypto as long as it is not prohibited by the law. To repeat, when money talks bullshit walks

but that is not the biggest reason why they aren't accepting bitcoin as payment in my opinion. specially since it is not prohibited by law in most countries in the world!
the biggest reason is still lack of demand. a shop needs to know that if they start accepting bitcoin as payment then there will be enough customers who are going to spend there so that the efforts are not a waste.
for example imagine you have a shop in New York, would you start accepting all kinds of currencies like Chinese Yen? it is not illegal to accept CNY but you won't simply because you don't know if there is anybody who would even spend it there and you don't want the hassle of setting up a payment system to accept it assuming it is not going to be in cash payments.

[Sithawaka]

For merchnts to reject bitcoin as a means of payment high volatility can be definitely point out as an obstacle and it is the most significant reason why bitcoin haven't progress in businesses because it makes majority of Organizations and clients hesitate to combine there businesses or make payments with bitcoin because in a little time it can do a big profit loss but we should know high volatility of btc is the main reason why many investors are attracted to invest in it but also it scare merchants away from accepting it

[udidrone]

I think that Bitcoin users are not in a hurry to spend Bitcoins now. The price of Bitcoin is now too low to spend. Therefore, there is no demand for payment for goods using cryptocurrency.

As you must know even bitcoin cheaper than now, people already hurry to make it as payment. And then when it is on high price, peoples objected to fees because it's value increased too even in satoshis it still same.

[deisik]

there is no lack of merchants ready to accept crypto as long as it is not prohibited by the law. To repeat, when money talks bullshit walks

but that is not the biggest reason why they aren't accepting bitcoin as payment in my opinion. specially since it is not prohibited by law in most countries in the world!
the biggest reason is still lack of demand. a shop needs to know that if they start accepting bitcoin as payment then there will be enough customers who are going to spend there so that the efforts are not a waste.
for example imagine you have a shop in New York, would you start accepting all kinds of currencies like Chinese Yen? it is not illegal to accept CNY but you won't simply because you don't know if there is anybody who would even spend it there and you don't want the hassle of setting up a payment system to accept it assuming it is not going to be in cash payments

Hey, did you read the OP?

As this is exactly what this topic is about. It is about merchants not accepting cryptocurrencies because no one wants to pay with them (this is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the point), and not because they don't want to earn more profits through cryptopayments as the claims of some folks here essentially come down to. Where there is enough demand for such payments, merchants don't wait to show up as well

[aarons6]

i think the main reason is because of the way its taxed. its not seen as currency but as product, or property

if i was a merchant i certainly would not want to be taxed buying bitcoin (you are actually buying bitcoin by trade) and then taxed again selling it, specially if you happen to sell it at a profit. unless you hold it for a year.

the way its done it makes things too complicated to deal with.

[deisik]

i think the main reason is because of the way its taxed. its not seen as currency but as product, or property

if i was a merchant i certainly would not want to be taxed buying bitcoin (you are actually buying bitcoin by trade) and then taxed again selling it, specially if you happen to sell it at a profit. unless you hold it for a year.

the way its done it makes things too complicated to deal with

That depends on jurisdiction, obviously

For example, in Japan Bitcoin is legally considered a currency (e.g. like the US dollar) so the tax regulation of cryptocurrencies shouldn't be much different from how foreign currencies are regulated. I think it is along these lines in most of Europe as well. On the other hand, some American states went so far as decided to accept Bitcoin as a local "legal tender" of sorts for paying state taxes. That's not a bad sign from my perspective. If you can pay taxes with Bitcoin, you should be able to use it a legal means of payment as well (since this is what the idea of legal tender comes down to)

[cherryganda]

Bitcoin regulation is in big trouble now and there are no indication that ETF will be approve.
There are some country who dont want bitcoin on their circulation.
As long as this exist in the world there will be less merchant who are willing to accept BTC.
Those who wants to save BTC for the future or like to do trading in exchange.

[24Kt]

there is no lack of merchants ready to accept crypto as long as it is not prohibited by the law. To repeat, when money talks bullshit walks

but that is not the biggest reason why they aren't accepting bitcoin as payment in my opinion. specially since it is not prohibited by law in most countries in the world!
the biggest reason is still lack of demand. a shop needs to know that if they start accepting bitcoin as payment then there will be enough customers who are going to spend there so that the efforts are not a waste.
for example imagine you have a shop in New York, would you start accepting all kinds of currencies like Chinese Yen? it is not illegal to accept CNY but you won't simply because you don't know if there is anybody who would even spend it there and you don't want the hassle of setting up a payment system to accept it assuming it is not going to be in cash payments

Hey, did you read the OP?

As this is exactly what this topic is about. It is about merchants not accepting cryptocurrencies because no one wants to pay with them (this is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the point), and not because they don't want to earn more profits through cryptopayments as the claims of some folks here essentially come down to. Where there is enough demand for such payments, merchants don't wait to show up as well

The OP has actually valid explanation on this scenario of accepting crypto as payment method. If people are willing to pay no matter what the volatility issue is, there will always be merchants that will also extend their services.

[shield132]

The prevailing opinion on the forum seems to be that Bitcoin's adoption is limited by merchants' reluctance to accept it as a means of payment. In my eyes this view represents a typical cause-and-effect dilemma, which is colloquially known as putting the cart before the horse (i.e. confusing cause and effect). In this topic I will try to explain why such an opinion is in fact incorrect

To prove that it is not merchants' fault or reluctance to accept Bitcoin but rather unwillingness of the consumers to pay with it, we should think about the use cases where Bitcoin holders may in fact be willing to spend their coins. And if I'm right (which I am), then we should see merchants actually accepting crypto in these areas. This approach can easily prove whether people are really putting the cart before the horse here

Big-time holders don't seem to be very interested in speculating with Bitcoin because they already have enough to live like pigs in clover for the rest of their life. But when you have so much wealth, you would evidently want to spend some of it on things which you dreamed of your whole life, like sports cars, penthouses, jewelries for your girlfriend, traveling around the world and living in 5-star hotels like a king

And this is where we see Bitcoin being willingly accepted by providers of these services and suppliers of such goods. You can easily buy elite real estate, pay for the most exclusive sports cars, seduce your passion with most exquisite jewelries, and you can do all these things with bitcoins - provided you have enough of them, of course. In simple terms, when money talks bullshit walks. And Bitcoin is that money
So it is not about merchants at all

You want to say that there is no demand no supply? Yeah, you can really spend bitcoin to buy ticket, book hotel, even football player was bought with bitcoin and if I remember correctly, one club was sold in bitcoins or something similar. But why just merchants can't integrate it? If nothing, they won't be in loss with this additional payment way. Maybe there isn't really demand but everyone here talks that they want it, in reality no one does anything to get what they want.

[deisik]

You want to say that there is no demand no supply? Yeah, you can really spend bitcoin to buy ticket, book hotel, even football player was bought with bitcoin and if I remember correctly, one club was sold in bitcoins or something similar. But why just merchants can't integrate it? If nothing, they won't be in loss with this additional payment way. Maybe there isn't really demand but everyone here talks that they want it, in reality no one does anything to get what they want

Actually, some tried to integrate Bitcoin into their payment systems

For example, Steam, Microsoft, maybe a few other big names. Steam later closed this payment channel, and the real reason, as I'm inclined to think, was the lack of people willing to pay with crypto. Otherwise, it simply didn't make any economic sense provided crypto generated enough payments to support the payment infrastructure. And that is the exact reason why merchants might not want to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies - because the costs of integrating and supporting this infrastructure might easily exceed the profits generated through it