The Crypto Payment Providers Powering The Use Of Cryptocurrencies In Our Everyday Lives

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Three months ago during a Senate hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell remarked, “With cryptocurrencies, it’s not that they didn’t aspire to be a payment mechanism, it’s that they’ve completely failed to become one except for people who desire anonymity, of course, for whatever reason.”

While the Federal Reserve Chairman might have had his reasons, the present-day market situation speaks volumes about how incorrect this statement turned out to be. In recent months, cryptocurrencies have not only gained mainstream acceptance and legitimacy but have also reached their full potential of serving as a payment method.

For instance, El Salvador passed legislation earlier this year accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender. The result? Prominent brands like Starbucks, McDonald’s, Domino’s, and others have officially started accepting BTC as payment. The acceptance of cryptocurrencies isn’t just limited to these brands. Big brands like Tesla, Goldman Sachs, PayPal, Facebook, Amazon, and many more have begun entering the cryptoverse, increasing awareness and interest.

Even though cryptocurrencies have started gaining the status quo of “being an accepted medium of exchange,” usage is still limited. To drive more users into the ecosystem while correspondingly lowering the entry barriers and the technicalities like seed phrases and private keys, several crypto-centric platforms offer simplified payment solutions for users to spend their crypto securely.

Transforming The Dream Of Crypto Payments Into Reality

CoinZoom, one of the most highly regulated cryptocurrency exchanges in the US, is one platform spearheading ongoing efforts when it comes to bringing crypto to the masses. With licenses across multiple jurisdictions and operational in more than 192 countries, CoinZoom offers a range of products to help users maximize the value of their cryptocurrency holdings.

Part of this effort involves a partnership with the world’s leading payments service provider, Visa, to enable its users to pay for goods and services using digital tokens. CoinZoom has launched a range of Visa debit cards in conjunction with Visa, allowing users to spend over 40 different across 53 million Visa merchant locations worldwide.

Additionally, CoinZoom Visa cards deliver up to 5% cashback on each transaction, paid to the cardholder in CoinZoom’s native ZOOM token. CoinZoom initially launched its range of cards for its US customers but has now expanded its offering across Europe as well. Besides the Visa card lineup, CoinZoom also features a zero-fee remittance service called ZoomMe and interest-yielding crypto and fiat savings accounts that offer up to 10% APY and an additional 20% bonus interest for VIP members.

Another project, Request, driven by the idea that the world needs better banking systems, recently launched its Request Payment platform, which is aimed to help anyone manage all their crypto transactions and digital assets from a single dashboard. Via Request Payment,  businesses and individuals can expand their options for both making and receiving payments.

Request has been in business for hardly a year and has since then processed over USD 140 million worth of crypto invoices. The payment platform intends to simplify the task of asking for a payment. It allows users to simply enter the payee’s email before generating a payment link that is forwarded to the intended recipient. Once the recipient processes the payment, it is directly deposited into the user’s Request wallet.

Other than Request Payment, the platform also offers Request Invoicing, a more comprehensive version of the former, which allows users to add detailed information on the invoice and customize payment methods. The platform currently supports all EVM-compatible tokens, stablecoins, and tokenized fiat currencies.

COTI, an enterprise-grade fintech platform, offers a blockchain protocol designed for decentralized payments that support many use cases. Thanks to its range of products, the platform Can seamlessly process every payment type, including fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, stablecoin, or other native coins.

To help further accelerate the growth and mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies as payment, COTI has partnered with Simplex to offer its users the crypto-friendly COTI bank account and COTI Pay Visa debit cards. COTI users can now open their very own personal bank accounts using an IBAN and store their digital assets natively in the COTI Pay wallet. With the IBAN, registered account holders can send and receive fiat and crypto to any bank account globally.

Users can then use the linked COTI Pay Visa card to spend their funds at all Visa-affiliated merchant stores worldwide, both online and in-store. The platform plans to add new features and benefits for cardholders in the coming days, including loyalty programs, cashback, and other rewards. Currently, the debit cards are only available for users residing in the UK and EEA, with plans to roll out the same for other countries.