BitPay’s Aggressive Expansion Good For Bitcoin
BitPay, the Georgia-based Bitcoin payment processor, has had a busy year. With a constant stream of partnerships and deals being reported, the company has been working hard to ensure increased Bitcoin acceptance by linking up with as many merchants as possible.
This is in keeping with the payment processor’s avowed goal of having ‘one million merchants taking Bitcoin by the end of 2016.’ The company is on a roll in signing up partners, with every week seemingly heralding a new partnership for it.
More partnerships
BitPay’s partners include some heavy hitters. For instance, Bitcoin recently signed up with Bloq, a blockchain technology company. With Bloq providing the technological expertise and BitPay the platform for Bitcoin payment, an interested merchant would be able to fully integrate themselves into the Bitcoin environment and even start new blockchain-based services for their own use.
This experimentation with and adoption of blockchain technology does not stop there. BitPay has also partnered with Microsoft to be part of the Azure blockchain platform. These two partnerships are focused on improving the technology and implementation of Bitcoin.
When it is not experimenting with the future of Bitcoin, BitPay also does normal merchant partnerships. Since the cryptocurrency crosses borders easily, BitPay’s partners can be seen the world over. A recent partner should be recognizable to many: PayPal. Since January, BitPay has been working with the payment giant to handle Bitcoin payments.
Other notable partnerships are with GASH Point in Asia and Ingenico in Europe. GASH Point sells prepaid cards for online gaming purchases, which can now be reloaded using Bitcoins. Ingenico, on the other hand, is a point-of-sale terminal provider that can allow BitPay to offer Bitcoin payments in brick-and-mortar stores.
Its partnership with Wargaming and Steam also establishes BitPay as the most trusted Bitcoin payment processor even in the online gaming sector.
Increased market penetration
All of these partnerships are aimed at a single goal: the popular acceptance of Bitcoin. As early as 2011 when BitPay was first founded, the company began to aggressively pursue merchants and partnerships that would increase the profile of Bitcoin.
This strategy is helped by how BitPay operates. It reduces the price volatility risk that many merchants face when dealing with Bitcoin by immediately converting the cryptocurrency and depositing the appropriate currency in their partner’s accounts. Additionally, BitPay promises that it would offer unlimited payment processing forever at the low rate of one percent for every transaction. Compared to transaction fees that can reach to five percent with other processors, this is a lot lower and can mean a bigger profit margin for many merchants.
With an attractive package like that, merchants will be definitely tempted to adopt Bitcoin. This starts a feedback loop. As more merchants start to accept Bitcoin, there is an increased chance that people exposed to the cryptocurrency will adopt it. With an increased Bitcoin usage, other merchants will want to get a piece of the market.
BitPay’s efforts make the community bigger, while also ensuring that the company gets a solid profit. With its constant partnerships with more merchants, BitPay is doing the Bitcoin community a great service and ensures a bright future for the cryptocurrency.
