LARGE US CHAIN STORES WILL START ACCEPTING CRYPTOCURRENCY FOR PAYMENT
Several large US chain stores, including Amazon’s Whole Foods food chain, announced the imminent availability of payment for goods with cryptocurrencies.
It is reported that, in addition to Whole Foods, cryptocurrency will be received by Crate and Barrel, a chain of home goods stores, Nordstrom, a network of expensive department stores, Baskin Robbins, a well-known café chain, as well as some other retail chains. Users will be able to pay for purchases using BTC, BCH, ETH and GUSD cryptocurrency. Such an opportunity will come from the cooperation of the stores with the payment startup Flexa and the Gemini exchange.
In order to pay users will need to install a special mobile application, Spedn. Scanners in stores will be configured to accept payment through the application, and the cashier will not even know that the user pays for purchases with cryptocurrency. The retail network will receive funds from Flexa in real time, and transfers will be available both in cryptocurrencies and in US dollars.
It is reported that the solution developed by Flexa, allows for transactions in real time, and the application makes the purchase process fast and trouble-free. The head of Flexa, Tyler Spalding, stressed that the use of cryptocurrency will help retailers to reduce the amount of commissions that are paid for cashless payments. In addition, cryptocurrency payments will provide shops with the opportunity to experiment with new types of loyalty programs.
The Winklevoss brothers (Cameron, Tyler Winklevoss), the founders of the Gemini exchange, which will be responsible for calculations and transfers, also noted that often the users are frightened by the high volatility of cryptocurrencies. However, this problem can be solved using a stable Geini Dollar, the rate of which is pegged to the US dollar.
Earlier, the leadership of the British travel company Corporate Traveler noted the desire of customers to use cryptocurrency as a means of payment, with the result that the company began to accept bitcoins for payment. It was also reported that the Starbucks network of coffee shops will introduce cryptocurrency payments by the end of this year.
