Cryptocurrency is a huge topic at the moment and after 10 years of being in place, it’s slowly making its way to becoming mainstream. Cryptocurrency is traded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week all over the world and, in the US, around 30% of small businesses now accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment.
But, is cryptocurrency a good form of payment for small businesses to accept? There are some serious considerations to take into account before considering whether to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment. If this is something you’ve been considering as a small business, then let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons involved.
Pro: Cryptocurrency Offers Payment Security
The Covid pandemic has, unfortunately, led to a surge in credit card fraud and in 2020, fraudulent transactions increased by 35%. Credit and debit cards were the largest source of fraud reports among all payment methods and, sadly, small businesses were often the target of this type of fraud.
Cryptocurrency in some aspects can be considered more secure than credit and debit card payments. Cryptocurrencies do not need third-party verification and, when a customer pays with cryptocurrency, their data isn’t stored in a digital hub, where data breaches regularly occur. Cryptocurrency uses a blockchain ledger to verify and record transactions, which makes it difficult to steal information.
Con: Cryptocurrency Transactions Are Irreversible
One of the cons with using cryptocurrency to make payments is that once a transaction goes through, then it is permanent, This can cause issues for small businesses as transactions should only be refunded by the party receiving the funds and businesses that accept cryptocurrency and bitcoin should be prepared for customers potentially requesting refunds.
On the other hand, the irreversibility of cryptocurrency may allow business owners to better manage their money flow. There are no chargebacks that business owners should be worried about and, should a customer request a refund, then the retailer will have to manually pay them back, which encourages employees to keep clean and immaculate records.
Conclusion: Crypto Is Still Considered Risky
A lot of cryptocurrency users accept that this form of currency is still considered highly risky and is surrounded by uncertainty. As there are few regulations in place for cryptocurrency, governments are unable to alter the value, so the stock market can fluctuate massively. For many business owners, this level of uncertainty makes the thought of cryptocurrency untenable.
Cryptocurrency is still relatively new and there is still a lot to be learnt in terms of how we can use it as a currency in a safe and innovative way. Unfortunately, with the rise in popularity of cryptocurrency investments, a correlating rise in crypto trading scams has also emerged. For many business and personal investors, losing money investing can be devastating.
Thankfully, there are now expert investment fraud lawyers who work in recovering money lost through trading. There’s still a lot to be learnt in terms of cryptocurrency and firms, such as Wealth Recovery Solicitors, have legal experts who specialise in tracing and recovering money lost through cryptocurrency scams and trading.