As of next year, more than 25,000 stores in France will accept bitcoin payments. The news is given by Le Figaro, one of the major French newspapers. Adoption is one of the key points to guarantee the success of cryptocurrencies. This historic result has been achieved in France thanks to the joint work of a number of digital payment companies.
Bitcoin payments in major stores
East2PlayPayment and EasyWallet have announced a new partnership with Global POS with the aim of encouraging the adoption of bitcoin. The announcement was made in Paris during Paris Retail Week. The cryptocurrency will thus be usable in 30 new franchises from the first quarter of 2020. High-profile names include Boulanger, Foot Locker, Decathlon, Conforama, Maison du Monde, Intersport, Cultura, Norauto and Sephora.
When buyers complete a purchase, the bitcoins will immediately be converted seamlessly into euros. These big chains won’t have to deal directly with bitcoins, nor will they have to manage them, but they will make this new means of payment available to users. Global POS has baptised the advent of cryptocurrencies as a 3.0 economy and is already planning to accept other cryptocurrencies in addition to BTC in the future.
“Initially, the service we offer will only allow spending Bitcoins, but our objective is to open our solution to other cryptocurrencies in the future”.
This was stated by Stephane Djiane, CEO and founder of Global POS.
For Grégory Hervein, co-founder of the Moustaches brand (products for dogs and cats), accepting cryptocurrencies is a real challenge for retailers. According to last year’s Le Figaro surveys, around 3-6% of French citizens have cryptocurrencies.
If successful, there will be a great increase in crypto payments, which is why the arrival of solutions such as Lightning Network, which promote greater scalability, is essential.