A study conducted by Visa shows that almost one in every four small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) said they intend to accept cryptocurrency payments such as Bitcoin. According to the same study, 73% of respondents believe that accepting new forms of digital payment options will be a key factor influencing business growth in 2022.
Wheatstones also conducted a census-balanced survey of 687 small, medium, and large enterprises in the United States and the United Kingdom across a wide range of industries to determine their future intentions. This was a survey of 400 individual firms in the United Kingdom and 287 individual firms in the United States. It was conducted to determine how businesses in general view cryptocurrency as a form of investment.
All of the respondents for Wheatstones survey were senior decision-makers, most notably owners/partners, CEOs, and managing directors from a variety of industries, including manufacturing, construction, medical, retail, hospitality, legal, accounting, IT, media/PR, logistics, financial services, real estate, and education. The research included a wide range of business sizes, with annual revenues ranging from $25,000 to more than $1 billion and employee counts ranging from 2–5 to 1,000 or more per organization.
According to Wheatstones survey in the United Kingdom, 9% of businesses have already begun investing in cryptocurrencies and intend to continue doing so, while 7% intend to do so within the next 12–24 months. Another 17% said they would consider investing if regulatory certainty could be obtained. Whereas in the United States, 18% of businesses have already begun investing in cryptocurrencies, with another 11% planning to do so within the next 12–24 months. With 17% saying they would consider investing if regulatory clarity could be obtained.
Whereas the study conducted by Visa included 2,250 small business owners from nine countries, including the UAE, Hong Kong, the United States, and Canada. 82% of those polled said they intend to implement some form of digital payment option by 2022. The survey also included a consumer section in which 1,500 adults from nine markets took part. In this section, more than half of the respondents stated that they expect to be completely cashless within the next 10 years. 41 % said they had abandoned a purchase in a physical store where digital payments were not accepted.
Small businesses are not the only ones who want to accept cryptocurrency payments. Users expressed a desire for the option to pay in cryptocurrency when booking on Airbnb in a recent Twitter poll conducted by Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. The majority of businesses are still figuring out how to accept cryptocurrency payments. We will almost certainly see a significant convergence between the cryptocurrency financial system and the traditional financial system over the next several years.
