Whole Foods, Home Depot, Among Stores Now Taking Bitcoin
What Flexa has done is persuade the retailers-which also include Regal Cinemas, Gamestop and Baskin Robbins-to configure their scanners to recognize payments from its cryptocurrency app, which is called Spedn.
The store cashier will typically be unaware the customer is paying with crypto, while the merchant receives a real-time payment in the form of their choosing.
For consumers, using cryptocurrency as an everyday payment mechanism hasproved impractical because of crypto’s volatility-a wallet with $100 worth ofBitcoin at the start of the week may only be worth $80 by week’s end.
Spalding, who is a veteran of the gift card exchange service Raise, added thatcrypto payments also offer stores a way to experiment with new types ofblockchain-based customer rewards.
According to a person familiar with the project, who spoke on condition ofanonymity, the reason for the silence is because the crypto payments are stillan experiment, and retailers don’t want to discuss them until they gain a betterunderstanding of the technology and consumer demand.
The value of the Bitcoin in my Spedn app has jumped around about 5% todayalone, which is fine for an investment but not for a day-to-day payment tool.
For now, it’s too soon to say if the big name merchants who signed on this week-other names include Petco, Lowe’s and Office Depot-will still be taking the payments this time next year.