Crypto payments provider Bit Pay has announced that it will soon support Ethereum payments, allowing merchants to continue their journeys in adopting and accepting altcoins and assorted digital assets as means of payment. Bit Pay checks, validates and confirms transactions on all current blockchain networks within the digital currency space.
Bit Pay and Ethereum Are Joining Hands
Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap and the number one competitor to bitcoin. In a statement, the company explains why it chose to add Ethereum support in the coming weeks over other currencies. For one thing, many merchants have expressed interest in the coin and their willingness to accept it in return for goods and services. It also boasts the largest userbase after bitcoin, and by supporting Ethereum, Bit Pay will “soon be able to support ERC-20 tokens, namely stable coins,” it reads.
CEO Stephen Pair commented:
Bit Pay is consistently at the forefront of using cryptocurrency to solve real-world problems and offer our global customers the best options to accept and pay with multiple blockchain assets. As one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap and one used by thousands of companies, Ethereum is the next logical choice.
Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, also had some enthusiastic words to say regarding Bit Pay’s integration of Ethereum. He explained:
It is exciting to see Bit Pay leading the way in integrating Ethereum into global payment systems. This truly opens up a new world of possibilities for the Ethereum ecosystem, and together we can continue to be a leading innovator for real world use cases for cryptocurrencies.
Buterin recently made headlines when he commented that the Ethereum network had become seriously clogged over the years, and was no longer scalable thanks, in part, to the many new coins and tokens being built on its blockchain.
As more news about this has emerged, it appears Tether, a controversial stable currency, could be behind that congestion, as Tether use of the Ethereum blockchain has increased by roughly 1,000 percent over the past year alone.
The Truth Is Coming Down Hard
This is starting to bear harsh realities for the Ethereum network, as the amount of gas used on the blockchain has increased to just shy of $200,000 daily. As it stands, the amount of money people pay in daily gas fees is only about $3,000 less than what users are paying in fees related to bitcoin transactions.
Bit Pay is one of the few cryptocurrency companies permitted to do business in New York, a state that has not been particularly kind to blockchain innovation. The enterprise garnered a virtual currency license through the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), allowing the company to develop crypto-based accounts for retailers willing to accept crypto payments.
