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The Tipping Point: Kroger, Starbucks May Ignite Retail Crypto

cryptocurrency payments actually grew last year. Payment processor BitPay reported a “record” $1 billion in transaction revenue in 2018, with its business-to-business (B2B) operations increasing by 255 percent compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, the use of cryptocurrencies in such economically unstable countries as Venezuela and India has surged, as people turn to the likes of Bitcoin and Dash to escape from increasingly worthless national currencies.
These are all encouraging developments, and they’ve become more encouraging in recent months, with growing interest in crypto payments from major retailers. From Kroger to Starbucks and Rakuten, big corporate names have begun flirting with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network as a payment channel, as well as with other cryptocurrencies. Their interest comes amid rising disenchantment with legacy payment systems, stoking hopes that a few more big converts to crypto payments could provide an all-important tipping point toward widespread adoption.
However, while events appear to be moving in the right direction for crypto payments, experts agree that it will take more than a few isolated use cases before the industry will see adoption on a larger scale. Added to this, payment interfaces need to be improved and made more consumer-friendly. It’s only with the combination of technological effectiveness and corporate adoption that the global public will begin using crypto as money.
Kroger struck by lightning?
At the beginning of March, supermarkets giant Kroger — the 17th-largest company in the United States — revealed that it would stop accepting Visa credit cards at over 250 of its stores. “Visa has been misusing its position and charging retailers excessive fees for a long time,” said Kroger executive VP Mike Schlotman in a statement, with the retailing giant also explaining that Visa’s fees were the highest of any of the credit cards it accepted.
What’s interesting about this episode is that members of the crypto community quickly swooped in to make the case for Kroger to accept Lightning Network payments. On Twitter, Morgan Creek Digital founder Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano reached out on March 2 to the retailer’s leadership team, stating that the “Morgan Creek Digital team will fly to meet them and get them hooked up with the Lightning Network nationwide.” Even more interesting, Pomp followed this up on March 3 with a tweet announcing that he had just “finished up first call with someone on Kroger Digital team,” and that his followers should “stay tuned” for more updates.
It’s hard to say just how far Kroger will run with Pompliano’s offer, yet industry figures are more or less unanimous in their views that adoption of Bitcoin payments by a giant like Kroger would be a watershed moment for the industry.
“Adoption of Lightning Network by a major retailer would definitely be a big deal for the entire crypto space,” says Vilius Semenas, the chief commercial officer at crypto-payment processor CoinGate. “For bitcoin, exposure to real consumers on such a scale could only do good and pave the way toward another level of adoption.”
According to Semenas, there’s certainly an appetite among major retailers for a new payment network to replace legacy systems. “The card payments industry is unique in that Visa and MasterCard control the lion’s share of the consumer base,” he told Cointelegraph. “At the same time, innovation adoption in this space takes a long time because the market is two-sided and needs adoption from both consumers and retailers. Retailers are naturally frustrated, because they have little-to-no ability to affect card payments, and they would probably turn to alternative payment rails if they could.”
CoinGate isn’t the only crypto-payment processor who suspects that such retailers as Kroger would prefer to move to more efficient and cost-effective payment systems. BitPay’s director of product, Sean Rolland, also told Cointelegraph much the same thing, even if he suspects that it will be a long time before existing systems are replaced by crypto-based alternatives. “No business enjoys high fees,” he said. “Legacy payment systems are not going completely away anytime soon, but retailers should always be evaluating better solutions.”
— Citește pe cointelegraph.com/news/tipping-point-kroger-starbucks-may-ignite-retail-crypto