The cryptocurrency industry has faced a lot of hurdles and resistance from regulators and individuals alike. While the resistance seems to be preventing the adoption and much-desired use of cryptocurrency for payment, data suggests otherwise. According to Trade Block, Stablecoins which run on Ethereum’s blockchain had higher transaction volume that payment application Venmo.
The stablecoins include Tether, USD Coin, Dai, Paxos, and True USD. Tether recorded the highest on-chain transaction volume, followed by USD Coin, Dai, Paxos, and True USD. this represents a growing interest in stablecoins for transactions since Q1 of 2018.
Transition to crypto payment
As at Q1 of 2018, stablecoins only accounted for an insignificant percentage of the transaction volume while Venmo took the bigger share. Since then, there has been a growing transaction volume for stablecoins albeit slowly, until Q4 of the year when the volume for stablecoins saw some significant growth.
Further growth was recorded in Q1 2019 but Q2 was phenomenal with the total stablecoin transactions surpassing that of Venmo. This is a rather dramatic transition that brought stablecoins to exceed the traditional payment app Venmo in just a little over a year. It suggests the use of stablecoins (cryptocurrency) for payments is becoming more popular among merchants who before now were using traditional methods such as Venmo.
Bitcoin also getting acceptance
While stablecoins are doing well as means of payment, the top cryptocurrency Bitcoin is also doing extremely well as a means of settling payments. According to data, Bitcoin’s on-chain transaction volume, as well as exchange volume, are on the verge of surpassing those of both Mastercard and Visa, the world’s top payment companies.
Its exchange volume has already exceeded that of MasterCard and is heading towards Visa while it is just a matter of time before the on-chain volume does the same. This is also a remarkable feat as Bitcoin is achieving this despite the scaling problem it is said to have.
Cryptocurrency supporters have argued that payment using crypto is much cheaper and faster. This may be the driving force behind the unprecedented popularity of cryptocurrencies which are much younger than the traditional financial systems.
If this trend continues, cryptocurrency may be constituting a fierce competition against traditional payment options and it might not be long before it becomes widely accepted.
