GRAFT Blockchain Explores Incentives for Retailers to Adopt Digital Currencies

According to findings from GRAFT Blockchain, merchants are increasingly eager to adopt digital currencies as the industries grows and addresses its current obstacles. This marks perhaps another step in the march towards mainstream adoption of digital currency. However, the factors driving adoption don't yet signal that digital currencies are the solution to merchant concerns.

Factors driving digital currency adoption among merchants

As an open-source project that looks to facilitate a universal payments processing network, merchant adoption is a key focus for GRAFT Blockchain. Now, in findings made available to Coinsquare News, GRAFT explored the potential areas driving merchant interest in digital currencies.

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To sample the current sentiment of merchants towards digital currencies, GRAFT spoke with 65 merchants about Point of Sale practices. Reportedly, these merchants were diversified by the goods they provide, and provided insight into their willingness to accept digital currency payments. According to its findings, 74% of the merchants surveyed praised digital currency adoption as a way of appealing to new customers. Here, GRAFT cited a heightened level of interest in digital currencies exhibited by young adults. Further, 70% of merchants saw digital currencies as a way of lowering their fees. Historically, this has not been the case for currencies like Bitcoin, which exhibits increasing transaction fees as adoption grows. However, current and upcoming industry solutions look to lower transaction fees. Of those surveyed, 52% of merchants cited faster purchase decisions and increased consumer spending as a potential benefit of adopting digital currencies. According to studies cited by GRAFT, people are more likely to spend impulsively when using a credit card instead of cash, which could translate into a similar trend with digital currencies. 50% of merchants expressed praise for the ability of blockchain technology to facilitate customer loyalty rewards programs.

Digital currency helps merchants look like industry innovators

The fifth major reason given to GRAFT during its discussion with merchants was the appeal of appearing as an industry innovator. Innovation is a trend often rewarded with goodwill, and this perception is reportedly an attractive reason to adopt digital currencies for 60% of those questioned. Previously, platforms like Steam were viewed as innovative for accepting payments made with bitcoin. However, the popular gaming platform later retracted its support for the currency due to untenable transaction fees. Similarly, payments processing service, Stripe, discontinued its bitcoin support in January 2018, but expressed interest in adopting a different digital currency at the time.Ultimately, digital currencies are still a new addition to the world of economics. Merchant adoption is yet to progress in a linear fashion, as many await solutions to the industry’s current obstacles like scaling before accepting digital currency payments. However, as GRAFT cited, more than 100,000 merchants around the world currently accept digital currencies. While this is yet to overthrow traditional Point of Sale methods in Canada, understanding potential motives for adoption could play a role in fostering the industry’s growth.Image credit: GRAFT logo

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