Cryptocurrency payments are As Stripe hints that it might support BTC again and PayPal, CoinsPaid – one of the world’s largest crypto payment providers – reports a record 400% increase in transaction volume.
Crypto payments show no sign of slowing down as Bitcoin retraces
October and November 2021 were marked by strong volatility in the crypto markets, with a 20% pullback across the board after Bitcoin reached a new ATH of $69k. This led some investors to question if the latest bull run might be over and we are in for the next bear market soon.
However, there is one area where growth keeps speeding up regardless of market conditions: crypto payments. Crypto processing companies like CoinsPaid reporting record increases in volume, while several global companies announced new plans to support crypto.
Notably, Stripe, a $95 billion company, revealed that it might start accepting Bitcoin again after ending support for BTC in 2018. Stripe even appointed the co-founder of the Paradigm blockchain venture fund Matt Huang to its board of directors, indicating that the payment giant is looking into new crypto opportunities.
Meanwhile, the Bitcoin Network itself has processed 62% more in transaction volume this year than PayPal: $489 billion per quarter vs. $302 billion, respectively, according to a new report by Blockdata.
Amazingly, more than 7% of all on-chain Bitcoin transactions are handled by just one provider: CoinsPaid. Its Cryptoprocessing gateway has made headlines in 2021 as the client portfolio more than doubled and the processed volume skyrocketed by 400%. This indicates that the crypto payments market as a whole can take the lead as the fastest-growing segment of the industry: a good sign of approaching mass adoption.
Up 400% in 2021: what CoinsPaid numbers say about the crypto payment market
It’s almost unheard for a payment company to increase its volume by a factor of 5 in a year. So even the team of CoinsPaid itself were surprised when the number of merchants joining the gateway started ballooning rapidly in early 2021. From just over 300, the number of companies using the Cryptoprocessing gateway rose to 800+ in just 10 months, or almost by 200%.
Impressively, the number of processed transactions grew even faster: in October it was 313% higher month-on-month than in January, reaching a record 1.26 million. Of the total of 13 million operations processed by CoinsPaid since 2017, 7.8 million were in 2021.
October 2021 was also a record month in terms of transaction volume: 712 million euro, or $824 million. This is 400% higher than in January. Overall, CoinsPaid processed $4.7 billion worth of crypto this year, a staggering 67% of the $7 billion that went through the Cryptoprocessing gateway since it launched.
Finally, CoinsPaid became the first crypto payment provider to have successfully passed two security audits (by the famed Kaspersky Labs and by 10Guards). The impeccable security track record and the triple-digit growth were noted by the industry: the company won the Payment Provider of the Year award at the AIBC Summit in Dubai.
CoinsPaid CEO: ‘The market can’t go up only, but the crypto payment sector can’
We have reached out to the CEO of CoinsPaid, Max Krupyshev, to learn his outlook on the prospects of crypto payments and the market as a whole.
Max, why do you think so many merchants are suddenly starting to accept crypto – both with the help of CoinsPaid and other providers?
I’d name three factors: growing retail adoption, the media narrative, and gains for the business. First, the number of crypto holders doubled to 300 million in the first half of 2021 – and many of them want to spend their crypto if they made good gains on the bull run. Add to this the problem with card payments in some industries, and you get a lot of people looking to pay with BTC.
The second factor is the news: PayPal, MasterCard, FIS, AMC, now Stripe – merchants read about crypto payments in the news and want to try them. And finally, the realization that they can save lots of money accepting Bitcoin as opposed to cards. In fact, you save up to 80% in payment costs – plus there are no chargebacks and no rolling reserves. Crypto is good for your profit margin, basically.
What would you recommend to a business owner that wants to try crypto payments?
First of all, shop around. There are dozens of processors, and they aren’t the same. For example, CoinsPaid lets you make settlements in 6 different fiat currencies, but many others don’t have fiat settlements at all. We also have a very transparent fee structure, but there are providers that advertise a low base fee but then make money on hidden exchange rate gaps. Also, we offer near-instant payments in BTC and ETH, so that users don’t have to wait for on-chain confirmations.
Also, remember that the job isn’t done when you’ve added a Pay with BTC button on the site. You’ll need to do some marketing to attract crypto traffic and to persuade your existing users to switch to crypto. But it’s worth the effort, 100%.
What’s your outlook for the crypto market? Did Bitcoin top at $69k?
I don’t think it topped – we might see some real fireworks in the next couple of months. But I expect the first half of 2022 to be difficult, so you should be very careful once you see euphoria in the market.
I’ve been in this industry since 2013 and was among the early blockchain pioneers in Eastern Europe, founding organizations like Bitcoin Foundation Ukraine and Satoshi Square Kiev. In these 8 years, I’ve seen lots of cycles, crashes, FOMO runs, everything. And what I like about crypto payments as a niche is that it can keep growing under any conditions, even in a bear market. In a way, it’s the single real ‘up only’ segment of the industry.
Crypto payments may not seem as exciting as speculative leveraged trading, but in the end it’s the shortest road to mass adoption. Thanks to providers like CoinsPaid, hundreds of merchants have discovered the advantages of accepting BTC, ETH, DOGE, etc. – and we are likely to see thousands more join the trend in 2022.
