It is likely that bitcoins will become a global currency once they become an accepted method of payment for daily transactions comparable to bank cards. All of the benefits of owning bitcoins are not exploited if you simply hold them or sell them without having the opportunity to spend them. Yet demand determines supply, and more and more vendors are starting to include bitcoins among their accepted payment methods. In Lithuania, however, online shops do not yet accept them but in other countries you may already come across a bitcoin symbol on the doors of physical stores or at the cash register.
In 2017, responding to the market trends, Varle.lt, UAB, included today’s most innovative solution – paying with bitcoin – among its usual methods of payment. In the beginning, the bitcoin solution on the Varle.lt online shop was implemented on the basis of the MisterTango system. This year, having observed an increased number of customers making payments with this cryptocurrency, the company has improved the functionality for making bitcoin payments and deployed a CoinGate solution allowing customers to buy with bitcoins without any additional fees.
“We have observed that bitcoin is being taken up on a massive scale. The use of cryptocurrency as a form of payment for our goods has grown by more than 1,200 percent. Responding to the feedback from our customers making bitcoin payments, we have deployed a CoinGate solution allowing customers to pay in bitcoins free of charge without any additional fees”, said Marius Butauskas, Director of Commerce at Varle.lt.
What are the benefits of the new payment solution?
- Besides bitcoin, the customers of Varle.lt can now make payments with Litecoin, Ether or any other cryptocurrency (payments are available in over 40 cryptocurrencies).
- The customers of Varle.lt who make payments in cryptocurrencies can rest assured that they will not pay more than necessary (i. e. they will not have to pay an extra commission of around EUR 20) because CoinGate does not charge any transaction fees and provides conversion rates in real time.
- A more intuitive customer experience and a more reliable functioning (transactions are performed in real time and the byer can always see the payment status and receive a clear order confirmation).
CoinGate representative Vilius Semėnas said that they had witnessed a huge increase in the number of payments through e-commerce platforms. Paying for goods in cryptocurrencies is the cheapest way to cash them out. CoinGate has recently attracted a lot of attention among various payment service providers who are interested in the opportunities to integrate cryptocurrency payments into their platforms. “This year we expect to expand our activity in this field considerably and to attract new businesses through partnerships with current market players in the payment industry“, Vilius Semėnas said.
Secondly, the number of orders is not decreasing despite the drop in the prices of cryptocurrencies, Vilius claims. This indicates that this market segment, although still small in size, is starting to gradually treat bitcoin as a convenient method for making (and receiving) local and international payments and no longer regards it simply as a speculative currency. In general, it can be said that the situation on stock exchanges does not reflect the positive changes currently taking place across the market both in terms of regulation as well as acceptance and adoption.
The Director of Commerce of Varle.lt believes that the stabilisation of prices currently taking place is a very healthy phenomenon. The less surges in prices we will have, the more cryptocurrencies will be used as regular currencies and not just as a speculative asset.