Companies like Paypal, KFC, and Microsoft have chosen to accept payments in Bitcoin with those profits converted into dollars instantly.
“We don’t know exactly what bitcoins are, or how they work, but they shouldn’t stand between you and your fingers licking when you eat chicken.” Thus, in 2018, the fast food chain KFC announced that it would start accepting bitcoins as payment in Canada.
But after the adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador as legal tender, the company was forced to extend this payment method to other countries. On September 7 last year, KFC in El Salvador posted on its Facebook account that it accepted Bitcoin payments in any form of consumption: in a restaurant, on the go, in self-service or in a food court.
Since then, this has been the reality not only for the large corporations in the country but also for the medium and small businesses required by the Bitcoin Act, in its Article 7, to accept Bitcoin as a payment currency.
Another major company that has cautiously jumped into the cryptocurrency world is Microsoft. And the US tech empire assures, according to AFP, that its shareholders will “never be exposed to the vagaries of cryptocurrency.”
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For this reason, Microsoft decided to partner with Bakkt, a service that allows you to convert cryptocurrency into products like Xbox gift cards or add credit to a payment card like Starbucks.
But after announcing significant losses, Pakket saw the value of its stock plummet, raising questions about the viability of its model. The company, which was looking to acquire 9 million customers by the end of 2021, remained at 1.7 million through December 2021.
“Bitcoin should never be used for everyday purchases, because it is a particularly volatile asset, where each transaction is very expensive, takes at least half an hour to process, and is a huge energy consumer,” journalist Joseph Boyle sums up for AFP.
An approach, if applied to El Salvador, is not far from reality, as a survey published by the University of Jose Simeon Cañas Central America (UCA), in January of this year, showed that 70.1% of Salvadorans surveyed feel little or zero. confidence in Bitcoin, while another 22.1% said they do not know what the cryptocurrency is made of.
For its part, PayPal last year proposed in the US and UK a system to pay for your cryptocurrency purchases, converting these assets directly into dollars or British pounds, so as not to risk money with bitcoin’s volatility.
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“My position is that you should not give in to the enthusiasm and watch the horse race,” John Freeman, an analyst at CFRA Research, explained to AFP, regarding how large corporations use the crypto-asset on a daily basis.
However, you can buy bitcoins with PayPal, such as eToro, Binance or Coinbase are some of the ways to do so.
Similarly, companies like Tesla and Dell suggested selling their products in bitcoin, but ended up discreetly abandoning these initiatives.
International media CNBC reported last year that Tesla had bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. The company announced that it will start accepting bitcoin payments for its products. However, it was discontinued last May due to environmental concerns.
“Tesla recorded $101 million in impairment losses in 2021 from its bitcoin investment, citing a drop in the value of the cryptocurrency. Tesla added that it made $128 million in profit after selling a portion of its holdings last March.”
For their part, developers such as Cronje, who are dedicated to building an infrastructure to facilitate payments in this type of currency, believe that it is crucial that this reaches the general public. However, according to Boyle, companies have not yet found the perfect formula for this.
