If you own a business and receive payments, there are several good reasons for you to accept Bitcoin. Bitcoin is mainly seen as a type of investment, but it’s much more than that. Bitcoin is a new kind of money, independent of banks and freely exchangeable for goods and services. Have you ever stopped to consider that receiving Bitcoin as payment is the smartest way to accumulate it? In this article, I’ll prove why.
The first question business owners ask is:
Why should I accept Bitcoin as payment?
If it’s much more comfortable to use banks, card machines, debit cards, and even instant bank transfers which are received immediately, why accept Bitcoin payment, which most people still do not use daily? Well… this question makes sense when you don’t know there’s a better, more efficient, and cheaper system to implement in your business. Before I tell you why Bitcoin saves you from card machine fees, I’ll explain several reasons why you should accept Bitcoin as payment in your business.
1º Bitcoin is safer than other forms of payment
This is because once the transaction is registered in the blockchain and the confirmations are made, it’s practically impossible to reverse the transaction. The customer cannot chargeback the card and request a refund, as ill-intentioned customers might do with credit cards, for example. The same applies to the Lightning Network; once the transaction hits your wallet, the Satoshis are yours and nobody can confiscate or steal them from you if you take good care of your keys. Precisely because it is decentralized, there is no way for intermediaries to dip into your balance.
2º Bitcoin is permissionless
Another thing you should know is that Bitcoin is permissionless, meaning that anyone can download a wallet and start using it without needing to ask anyone for authorization. You don’t need a commercial proposal, nor do you need to sign a contract and be tied to a payment company. And also, no government or company can close your account. There are several examples of this type of censorship increasing worldwide, check this out.. Steam and PayPal were blocked by the government in Indonesia. The article says that due to the blocks, many PayPal users in Indonesia lost access to their accounts and funds.
And here’s another example where the population got screwed by political decisions. Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and American Express suspended operations in Russia amid the war. Imagine how Russian business owners felt about this decision… Overnight, their entire established payment operation was wiped out due to arbitrary decisions.
If you’re seeing these news popping up on the internet, you can’t just sit back and hope that it never happens to you. And just for this, I’m glad you’re reading this article, giving me a chance to alert you to what’s happening around the world and also to explain why you should accept Bitcoin as payment in your business.
3º With Bitcoin, you save on fees
There are two significant partners in your business: the payment processor and the government. But regarding payment processor fees, I have a good solution to offer. With Bitcoin, fees are much lower. Even better, the small processing fees are paid by the buyer, not you. Considering that you currently lose about 3% of your revenue to bank fees on debit transactions, with Bitcoin, you don’t pay any fee to receive directly in your wallet, and it’s without intermediaries.
But then you might argue that with Bitcoin it’s not the same because customers can’t make payments in installments. This installment culture exists mainly in developing countries. It’s the fiat mentality deeply entrenched in society. It’s the banks profiting from people with little or no financial education, offering credit for people to get into debt using money that isn’t theirs, and then charging exorbitant interest for it, leaving people even poorer and stuck in the rat race. Accepting Bitcoin means accepting payments upfront and starting to shift this erroneous mentality centered on debt.
4º Receiving in Bitcoin is the smartest way to accumulate
Receiving in Bitcoin is the easiest, cheapest, and smartest way for you to accumulate Bitcoin for the long term. It’s easy because you directly exchange your product or service for the strongest form of money that exists, which cannot be diluted through money printing like what happens with real, dollar, euro, peso. It’s cheaper because you avoid all the fees involved in the buying process via an exchange and sending to your wallet. Even if you optimized the process, by receiving directly into your wallet, you save quite a few Satoshis that could be worth a lot in the future. It’s smart because it’s a clever move to exchange your product or service for Bitcoin. You’re making one of the best deals out there.
Bitcoin is scarce, tends to transform into the future financial system, and you can use your profit margin to acquire Bitcoin cheaper than if you purchased via other platforms.
Entrepreneurs who catch this window of opportunity are incredibly smart. They’re building generational wealth simply by converting work into Satoshis since Bitcoin tends to appreciate over time. But of course, the most critical point is dealing with volatility. Every entrepreneur who has followed Bitcoin for a while understands that’s how it works, volatility rewards those who save with a focus on the long term.
It’s like going back in time, to the story of the first pizzas that were paid for with 10 BTC each! Who wouldn’t want to have been the pizzeria owner who swapped their pizzas for about 2 billion at today’s prices? Back then, no one paid attention, but nowadays when Bitcoin Pizza Day comes around, lots of people comment.
The question remains: Are most people once again missing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
5º Companies that hold Bitcoin break away from traditional markets
Few people are looking at the data, but if we observe, companies that keep Bitcoin in their cash reserves end up having their long-term performance correlated with it, especially if it’s a publicly traded company, like Microstrategy. I’ll show you the data in a moment, but if you didn’t know, Microstrategy is Michael Saylor’s company, a famous Bitcoiner who in 2013 was a harsh critic of Bitcoin, but who ended up going down the rabbit hole and becoming the biggest advocate of Bitcoin and of companies holding Bitcoin in their reserves.
It’s crazy how the pricing dynamics of Microstrategy changed dramatically after Michael Saylor went public defending Bitcoin and added Bitcoin to the company’s treasury. Notice how until 2020 Microstrategy, in the yellow line, had a normal fluctuation, following the Nasdaq index in blue, which is that of the main American stocks.
But from 2020, when the company announces that it added Bitcoin to its reserves, Microstrategy starts behaving more in line with the movements of Bitcoin than with the Nasdaq!
Crazy, right?! This shows us two things:
- Companies that insert Bitcoin into their cash reserves break away from the traditional market in both performance and how other investors view the company. In the image, we can observe the change in behavior of Microstrategy before and after adding Bitcoin to its reserves.
- Companies that hold Bitcoin and are listed on stock exchanges end up becoming an indirect way for corporations to expose themselves to Bitcoin. Because there isn’t yet an ETF or regulation allowing institutionally managed funds to buy Bitcoin directly. That’s why a significant part of fiat investors and traditional asset managers end up buying correlated assets because that’s what’s currently available. That’s also why the U.S. SEC is stalling to approve its spot Bitcoin ETF, as it could facilitate institutional access to Bitcoin and would demonstrate there’s high demand. Something that Central Banks and institutions like the SEC are trying to delay as long as possible.
And it’s not only Microstrategy that already has Bitcoin in its reserves. Other publicly traded companies have seen the potential of Bitcoin and are already holding Bitcoin in their cash reserves. Check out this cool research. It shows that Marathon, Elon Musk’s Tesla, and Jack Dorsey’s Square are at the top of this ranking.
But for you, the entrepreneur, what does Microstrategy’s story show you?
That you cannot only rely on the ice cubes that are governmental currencies. If your company accepts to receive ice cubes, you need many more strategies to prevent them from melting in your hands due to inflation. Inflation has an enormous impact on your business. It forces you to compress your margins to the maximum to stay competitive. It’s always you, the entrepreneur, who absorbs the economic impacts of expansionary monetary policies.
Bitcoin doesn’t have to be 100% of your assets, and you also don’t need to receive Bitcoin as the only solution. Bitcoin can be a small part that gives you more alternatives, both as a source of revenue and as a long-term asset class that protects you from the risk of dilution of governmental currencies.
Bitcoin helps any entrepreneur achieve business sovereignty.
Moreover, not depending on banks to receive payments and being able to move funds even if a calamity occurs in the financial system, is a measure of protecting your assets. I know this may seem far-fetched, something very distant. But it happens all the time in history and in various countries, as I just showed you with two events from 2022. I don’t know if something similar will happen in your country, but if by chance it happens one day, you will want to have thought of a way to protect yourself, to have created a life buoy for yourself, and Bitcoin is that life buoy.
So these are the advantages of accepting Bitcoin as payment in your business:
- Bitcoin is a safer payment system than the banking system.
- With Bitcoin, your company saves on fees and becomes more efficient.
- Bitcoin makes you a sovereign entrepreneur, as you decide what to do with your own money independent of central banks and payment processing companies.
- And Bitcoin doesn’t leave you as exposed to the financial system that looks more like an ice cube melting purchasing power through inflation
Ways to Accept Bitcoin
Below we list the available ways to start receiving bitcoin:
Payment Processors:
Companies like OpenNode, CoinOS, and protocols like BTC Pay Server act as intermediaries, enabling businesses to accept Bitcoin and lightning payments and convert these payments into a traditional currency if desired. It is possible to integrate them with online stores and point of sale software.
Bitcoin Wallets:
You can accept Bitcoin payments directly into a non custodial Bitcoin wallet that you have installed on the company’s mobile phone. This is an interesting way because it’s without intermediaries. However, a basic understanding of how Bitcoin wallets work is required. Some options you can use are the Blue Wallet and the Breez Wallet.
But knowing all of this is useless if you don’t believe. The main reason to accept Bitcoin in your business is because you believe in it.
And if you believe, you want Bitcoin to be adopted and benefit not just you but people all over the world.
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