85% of major retailers accept crypto as payment

Merchants and consumers have enough experience with cryptocurrencies to understand the advantages they offer as a method of payment.

Forty-six percent of merchants currently accept cryptocurrency as a method of payment, according to “Paying with Cryptocurrency,” a PYMNTS and BitPay collaboration based on a survey of 2,334 consumers and 202 merchants with annual online sales of at least $250 million.

Get the report: Pay with cryptocurrency

Large retailers are particularly likely to accept crypto as a form of payment, as 85% of businesses with over $1 billion in annual online sales say they accept some form of crypto-enabled payment method.

Among small merchants — those with annual online sales between $250 million and $1 billion — only 23% accept crypto for purchases.

The type of crypto payment that most merchants accept for in-store purchases are non-crypto-native digital wallets that enable crypto transactions, such as PayPal or Venmo. Ninety-four percent of customers can use cryptocurrency to pay for in-store purchases this way.

Other types of crypto payments that merchants accept for in-store purchases include cryptocurrency wallets, gift cards purchased from websites that accept cryptocurrency, and cryptocurrency debit or prepaid cards. These are accepted by 46%, 4% and 2% of merchants respectively for in-store purchases.

Non-crypto-native digital wallets are also the type of crypto payment offered by most merchants for online purchases, with 94% of customers able to use them to pay for online purchases.

Shares of merchants that allow customers to use cryptocurrency to pay for online purchases in other ways include 13% offering cryptocurrency wallets, 2% offering gift cards purchased from websites that accept cryptocurrency and 2% offering cryptocurrency debit or prepaid cards.

Seventy percent of traders expect to adopt more crypto innovations over the next 12 months. Among merchants who already accept cryptocurrency, 96% plan to deliver innovations related to cryptocurrency acceptance in the next 12 months. Among merchants who do not accept crypto, 42% plan to do so.