Wednesday, 13 Nov 2019

When cryptocurrency started to gain momentum in 2011, there was a collection of early adopters who started to use it for transactions on the dark web. Consequently, many businesses may view cryptocurrencies, such as: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin as corrupt and have concerns about using them at all.

Many cryptocurrencies are unregulated. However, most are an extremely secure form of payment, and have some distinct advantages over more ordinary types of payment:

• Lower fees - transaction fees are lower with cryptocurrency than with credit / debit cards, and when cryptocurrency is not exchanged, it completely eliminates the need for bank charges altogether.
• Fraud reduction - a payment made with cryptocurrency is irreversible. This is different from credit / debit card payments, which can be reversed using chargebacks, a feature commonly exploited by scammers.
• Instant payments - credit / debit card transactions can take days or even weeks to complete. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency offers instant transfers that increase in security after every confirmation on the blockchain.
• Secure - cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have thousands of nodes scattered all over the world. Nodes run on servers, they keep track of all the transactions that have ever occurred, meaning hacking into one of them is completely pointless.
• Borderless - cryptocurrency makes global trading more accessible by removing barriers and restrictions to transact, ultimately making it easier to accept payments wherever you are.
• Transparent - cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, contain a publicly published blockchain. Therefore, all transactions are public, traceable, and permanently stored in the network.
• Provably fair - meaning the mechanisms used to generate blocks, transactions and addresses can be vetted by the user independently for authenticity.
• Non-inflatable - sometimes. For example, Bitcoin was created with the sole purpose of being finite (max number of coins being 21 million). Therefore, issuing excess currency is prevented and the threat of inflation comes down close to zero. Currency that is not bound to inflation benefits both the seller and the buyer.

As cryptocurrency becomes more widely accepted by the general public, businesses should be keeping a close eye on how the technology should be harnessed to their advantage.

To find out more, watch this video on how cryptocurrency is changing money and business:

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Related:

• What is Bitcoin and How Does It Work?