Half of Online Retailers See Crypto Transactions as the Future, Yet Consumers Reject Payments with Bitcoin & Co.

23% of online merchants in Austria already accept payments with cryptocurrencies. Another 46% plan to offer this as a payment method within the next 12 months. About one in two sees crypto-transactions as the future of payment. A similar picture is also emerging internationally, as shown in a new infographic by Block-Builders.de. Here’s the crux: among consumers, it is only a small minority that would like to pay with Bitcoin & Co. – at least in Germany.

The scepticism of consumers also becomes clear when looking at Germany. 74.2% of German citizens are “definitely not” keen to pay with cryptocurrencies, according to a survey of 3,025 respondents. Meanwhile, 2.3% already pay with digital currencies, and another 5.1% would like to do so in the future. A significant proportion still seems to be hesitant.

As the infographic shows, cryptocurrencies only play a minor role in everyday life in this country – far away from the investment world. The country of El Salvador seems to be much further ahead in this respect. In September 2021 it became the first country in the world to officially accept Bitcoin as legal tender.

Yet scepticism is also high in El Salvador. 70.1% of El Salvadorians distrust Bitcoin, according to the results of a new study – and this in spite of the initiative of the political decision-makers in the state. 41.6% of the population is convinced that the digital currency primarily benefits the rich and the government. El Salvador is by no means a blueprint.

To return to Germany, and Bitcoin may be on everyone’s lips here, but primarily from an investor’s perspective. Despite all the progress, the Google search volume for the terms “pay with Bitcoin” is at a moderate to low level, comparing the Google Trend Score, which indicates the relative search volume in a 5-year review.

The expert audience of crypto news portals also seems to be more interested in investment. According to a survey by BTC-ECHO, slightly less than 10% of readers have paid with cryptocurrencies more than 5 times in a year. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of them do not pay with digital currencies at all, instead focusing on holding them and hoping for price increases.