OLB Group (OLB), a New York-based e-commerce merchant service provider, makes it easy for companies to accept cryptocurrency payments.
OLB’s 8,500+ merchants can now accept Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), USDC and DAI at the point of sale via the company’s OmniSoft Business Management platform. Customers who want to pay with cryptocurrency in-store or on their mobile phone can simply do so using their cryptocurrency wallets. All payments are processed through SecurePay, a payment gateway that authenticates the transaction, converts the cryptocurrency to US dollars, and authorizes the final sale.
The decision to incorporate cryptocurrency payments was partly due to the growth of contactless and online ordering during the Covid-19 pandemic. With the OmniSoft platform already offering merchants a variety of options to facilitate payments, cryptocurrencies were the next logical step.
According to Ronny Yakov, CEO of the OLB Group, the payment gateway and the point-of-sale architecture are “familiar territory for merchants”, which simplifies the integration of cryptocurrencies via such channels.
When it comes to cryptocurrency payments – a promising but underutilized use case for the industry – Yakov believes we are still at the very early stages of adoption.
“It is very early on in the adoption of Crypto-as-a-Payment, but we are seeing increasing interest from merchants using this payment option as a means to meet their customers where and where they prefer,” says Yakov opposite Cointelegraph.
He also believes that certain industries are more likely than others to adopt crypto payments:
“We expect adoption will be faster for higher-ticket transactions like jewelry, B2B billing, and real estate, as transaction fees for processing cryptocurrencies are lower – often half the typical credit card fees.”
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have struggled to become a viable medium of exchange and have drawn criticism of their usefulness. Charlie Munger, the billionaire and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, recently criticized Bitcoin as “too volatile to be used as a medium of exchange”.
In view of the ongoing development work on scaling and sidechains, it remains to be seen whether cryptoassets will ever function efficiently as payment systems. In the meantime, assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum are valued based on their ability to store or develop value.
