There is no shortage of people who are eager to tell you that cryptocurrency is the future and then go on for hours about the benefits of decentralized finance. And they’re not wrong.
However, these people often miss the much more nuanced debate about whether or not regular businesses should bother to figure out the details of accepting payment in various cryptocurrencies.
To help fill in some of those gaps, let’s take a quick look at five of the most common arguments for/against accepting crypto payments and how that might apply to small businesses like a commercial debt collection agency.
No One Spends Crypto (Today)
One of the best arguments against investing the resources to accept crypto payments is the simple fact that the majority of people who own cryptocurrencies don’t ever actually use them to buy and sell things.
As a general rule, most people view their crypto holdings as an investment rather than a currency, so the idea of using those funds to pay off an outstanding debt ranks right up there with using money from their 401k.
Volatile Price Swings
Another argument against accepting cryptocurrencies is the simple fact that most of the coins are so highly volatile that any proceeds left sitting in a crypto account could take a severe hit to their value in as little as a few hours.
While some stable coins are coming to the market to help remedy this issue, the concept of keeping business funds in coins just isn’t quite ready for prime time just yet.
Lower Transaction Fees
One significant advantage of accepting crypto payments is that the typical transaction fees tend to sit around 1% instead of the 2-3% that most businesses currently pay for payment processing.
Depending on the amount of volume you expect to process, this savings alone could justify transitioning all of your transactions to crypto immediately if you think you can get buy-in from clients/customers.
No Exchange Rates for International Sales
Another advantage that applies to international businesses is the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies. With crypto payments, you won’t have to bother with exchange rates for clients/customers in different countries worldwide.
Whether you are located in the United States, China, Russia, or Antarctica, one Bitcoin is worth one Bitcoin everywhere in the world.
Competitive Advantage (In the Future)
While many people aren’t quite used to the idea of using their crypto holdings as a currency right now, that is almost certainly going to change at some point soon. And when that happens, there is no doubt that the businesses that are first in line to accept these new forms of payment will have a significant advantage over their competitors.
So while you might not see a strong argument for accepting crypto payments today, there is almost no doubt that this is the way of the future. Throughout history, we have seen that businesses taking advantage of new technology like this see benefits that drop straight to their bottom line.
