Crypto acquiring is becoming popular. What is it: temporary hype or long-term option? Let’s find out how to acquire payments in crypto, what peculiarities it has, and how to make a choice according to its pros and cons.

The way internet stores accept payments on websites is known as web acquiring. If this involves Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it is called crypto acquiring. 

How it works?

Web acquiring implies several participants. Besides a customer and a merchant, there is an acquiring bank, an issuing bank (they can be the same), and a processing provider. 

The acquirer sends a request to the issuer with the help of the processing provider to make sure that the customer is reliable. If the issuer confirms it, the acquirer sends money from the customer’s bank card to the merchant’s bank account. 

Sometimes both merchants and customers have issues of different origin with this payment method. Government restrictions or unpleasant exchange rates can strongly influence international trade, especially nowadays. If your business is far from prosperity due to the disadvantages of national currencies, you need to decide how to cooperate with your clients, excluding the downsides of a bank system and providing them with reliable payments at the same time. Combining that sounds unrealistic, doesn’t it? However, If you accept payments in crypto, you use a trustworthy option that can help retain your client base and stay afloat. 

Crypto acquiring involves only three participants: a customer, a merchant, and a crypto payment processor. The customer has to transfer coins from their address to an address given by the merchant via the processor. This payment is charged with a network fee. Then the processor sends a request to the blockchain and if the transaction is confirmed, it sends information about it to the merchant. So the payment is completed, and the item is considered paid. If not go into details of the process, that’s it.

Who can accept payments in crypto?

Crypto acquiring is not an exceptional opportunity for the chosen. Crypto payment processors give a user-friendly interface for fast and ready-to-use integration to accept payments in any cryptocurrency you wish. Usually, crypto acquiring is popular with Forex, binary options, online gaming and gambling portals, sites providing adult content, web advertisement, etc. Any of these spheres can be tricky regarding social approval, obstacles of international financial operations, tax complexities, or the personal wish of customers to cover their expenses. Crypto can be a solution.

How to acquire safely and securely?

If it is not associated with fiat money or any established institute, then a legitimate question arises “Is it reliable?” Speaking about the safety of payments, let’s recall the very idea of a blockchain. It is a decentralized and transparent chain of blocks that cannot be hacked in contrast to any bank database. In the matter of your anonymity and security, there is no need to enter any personal information when registering an account in the crypto payment processor. Also, for example, a crypto payment processor can suggest a solution in which even your address is not discovered by your customers. Clients just send coins to a temporary address generated by the crypto payment processor, and afterward, payments are forwarded to your wallet. 

Pros and cons

Crypto acquiring has many crucial advantages compared to receiving fiat money:

• You can accept payments worldwide
• Easy and free integration with a crypto payment processor with anonymous registration 
• Flexible and low commissions for transactions
• Blockchain is a reliable, unbreakable, and decentralized system; data cannot be lost, hacked, or stolen
• Immediate operations and no waiting for approval

As with any phenomenon, it has some disadvantages, which are as follows:

• Some cryptocurrencies have high volatility.
• Payments can be stuck for a long time if the network fee is too low.
• Pseudo-anonymity of transactions because the blockchain is a transparent system
• Your customers can be unready to switch to crypto (uninterested in leaving fiat payments, consider crypto too sophisticated, etc.)

Variety of options

A crypto payment processor can provide various solutions concerning not only e-commerce. For example, Apirone has a donation widget integrated with your website for charity and crowdfunding. 

Another service worth mentioning is forwarding when you get coins immediately from your customers, not facing delays caused by approval procedures or other official protocols. 

Also, Apirone has a flexible service fee policy. There are two plans, fixed and percentage, so you can decide what is the best in terms of cost efficiency based on the frequency of payouts and money turnover. Moreover, you can switch from one to the other anytime if you change your business model.

What is next?

Everything changes, and the world has moved on. In the past, people could not even imagine they would pay for goods on the Internet, but now we spend money that cannot be held in our hands or withdrawn from an ATM. A blockchain is not only an innovative and convenient way to accept payments but also a way to work securely and store data decentralized without fear of hacking and theft. It is literally a technology of the future that you can start delving into now, and crypto acquiring is just a part of it.