For a business, the question about cryptocurrencies is not “will they go up?”. That question belongs to investors. A business that wonders whether to accept cryptocurrency payments has three questions of its own: do our customers want to pay this way, what does accepting cost, and what does it communicate?
This address used to host an article of ours from 2020, “Reinventing finance with cryptocurrencies”, which explained what cryptocurrencies are. That subject concerns the person in front of their own money, and our sister branch covers it: what cryptocurrencies are and how they work. Here we look at the other side: the business in front of its market.
Before you read. This article is for information and education. It is not financial, tax or legal advice, and it says nothing about how to invest a company’s money. Rules and costs change: check them on the date you decide, with a professional who knows crypto-assets well.
As always in this Observatory, we keep three things apart: what the research shows, what we observed in our own companies, and what we propose. It is the reader’s pact of the Mental Sciences Applied to Business.
First question: do our customers want to pay this way?
Knowing about cryptocurrencies, owning them and paying with them are three different things. Bank of Canada surveys show a wide gap between them. By late 2018, about nine in ten Canadians had heard of Bitcoin and about one in twenty owned it, and speculation remained the most common reason for owning it. In the December 2023 survey, about one Canadian in ten owned Bitcoin. Investment was the most common main reason for owning it, given by 44% of owners, and the use of Bitcoin for payments remained limited.
Even paying often goes through an intermediary. When the Bank of Canada asked Bitcoin owners in 2022 where they had last used it to pay, most of the few who answered (30 of 41) named crypto-focused businesses: exchanges, crypto-themed online casinos, or services that convert crypto into store gift cards. Many of the remaining purchases went through prepaid cards rather than through merchants accepting crypto directly.
Europe looks similar. The European Central Bank’s 2024 study of payment attitudes indicates that crypto-asset ownership in the euro area rose from 4% in 2022 to 9% in 2024, although the ECB notes that a change in the questionnaire may have affected the figures. Owners showed a clear preference for holding crypto-assets as an investment only: in the Netherlands, 90% held them only for investment and 2% only for payments.
The pattern is not new. An early analysis of Bitcoin’s public ledger up to mid-2015, a Stanford working paper by Athey and colleagues, suggests that active use was not growing quickly and that investors and infrequent users held most bitcoins.
What these data describe is the population, not your customers. A business that serves a community of crypto enthusiasts may see something else. But the starting point is clear: in Canada and in the euro area, most people who own cryptocurrencies hold them, and few use them to pay.
Second question: what does it cost to accept cryptocurrency payments?
Accepting a payment method has costs that do not show up on the day of the sale. Before deciding, list them one by one and check each on the date you decide:
- the fees of the payment service you use, in the provider’s current price list;
- the change in value between the moment you are paid and the moment you convert to euros, if you do;
- accounting and tax treatment, which differ from country to country and change often;
- anti-money-laundering obligations, for you and for your provider;
- refunds and disputes, which do not work as they do with a card payment: a transfer that has been made cannot simply be reversed.
In the European Union, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) has applied in full since 30 December 2024. It covers those who issue or offer crypto-assets and those who provide crypto-asset services, such as custody, exchange and transfers. The transitional period for providers authorised only under national law ended on 1 July 2026 at the latest.
In our reading, a business that simply receives payments through an authorised provider is not itself a crypto-asset service provider. It is a reading, not legal advice: check it with a professional who knows the field. The practical check is simpler: whether the provider you plan to use is authorised in the EU. The European supervisory authorities have warned that crypto-assets can be risky and that protection, if any, may be limited, and they recommend exactly that check.
For tax, accounting and anti-money-laundering questions, the person to ask is a professional who really knows crypto-assets. Not every accountant does, and the rules are recent.
Third question: what does it communicate?
Accepting cryptocurrencies can be, above all, a signal of novelty. What does the research say about that signal?
The early adopters among merchants were close to the subject. In a 2013 survey of 108 online merchants that accepted Bitcoin, mostly micro-businesses close to the Bitcoin community, just over half received no more than a tenth of their sales in Bitcoin, and the share was lower where customers could also pay with familiar methods such as PayPal or cards (Polasik and colleagues).
The clearest evidence on the signal comes from investors, not customers. Studies of listed companies suggest that the word “blockchain” moved share prices quickly but briefly. Investors reacted positively to vague blockchain announcements, but the reaction was largely reversed within a month (Cheng and colleagues). Firms whose blockchain investments were credible saw higher initial reactions and little or no reversal (Autore, Clarke and Jiang). Companies that added “blockchain” or “crypto” to their names saw their share prices rise in the following days, together with higher volatility and weaker short-term profitability; in most cases, nothing had changed except the name (Akyildirim and colleagues). And a 2026 event study indicates that, on average, firms lost value on the stock market after announcing that they would accept cryptocurrency payments, although firms that chose Bitcoin and those that moved in more recent years fared better (Bahmani).
Customers are studied less. In a hypothetical online scenario, offering crypto payments made a fictitious fashion brand look more credible and raised stated purchase intentions, especially for luxury goods (Sestino and colleagues). Stated intentions, however, are not payments: survey data on actual use point the other way.
Our reading, which is not a finding of these studies: the word can pay quickly, the substance pays and lasts. The research on listed companies is an analogy for a small business, not a direct measure. How the same offer changes meaning with the words around it is the subject of framing in marketing; how a name can borrow attention it does not earn, of brand names.
What we observed
In 2017, at the first edition of Firenze Comics, a fair we organized, we accepted payments in Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies. We wanted to do something innovative, something people would talk about, and to give a hand to a young sector.
Nobody paid that way. The acceptance worked, if it worked at all, as a signal: it was news, not revenue. The first question had answered itself. It is our experience at one event, not a general law, and it agrees with what the surveys show about use.
What we propose
Before you accept cryptocurrencies, answer the three questions in writing.
- Who is asking? Count the customers who have actually asked to pay this way in the last year. If the answer is none, the payment method is a message, not a service. Decide whether it is the message you want.
- What does it cost, in full? Write the list of the costs above with the figures of your provider and your professional, on the date you decide. Include the time it takes you to manage it.
- What do you want it to say, and is it true? If accepting crypto is meant to signal that you are innovative, make sure there is innovation behind it that customers can see. The research on listed companies suggests that a word without substance pays quickly and briefly.
If you go ahead, start small and measure: how many customers pay this way, how much, at what cost. A sale is complete when the money is in your account, and a payment method nobody uses is a cost with a story attached. How to measure what really happens between interest and payment is discussed in measuring a sales funnel.
In practice
Try a reversible test. Accept cryptocurrencies through an authorised provider that converts to euros at once, for a defined period, and say so plainly where customers pay. At the end of the period, compare three numbers: the payments received this way, their total cost, and the requests or mentions the option generated. Then decide whether to keep it, with data instead of enthusiasm.
How a business collects its revenue is one of the subjects of Business Starter, the first of our book-courses.
Sources
Akyildirim, E., Corbet, S., Sensoy, A., and Yarovaya, L. (2020). The impact of blockchain related name changes on corporate performance. Journal of Corporate Finance, 65, 101759. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101759
Athey, S., Parashkevov, I., Sarukkai, V., and Xia, J. (2016). Bitcoin Pricing, Adoption, and Usage: Theory and Evidence. Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Research Paper No. 3469. Working paper. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2826674
Autore, D. M., Clarke, N., and Jiang, D. (2021). Blockchain speculation or value creation? Evidence from corporate investments. Financial Management, 50(3), 727–746. https://doi.org/10.1111/fima.12336
Bahmani, N. (2026). Accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment and its impact on firm value. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 61(2), 230–239. https://doi.org/10.1177/10949968251379755
Balutel, D., Felt, M.-H., and Rusu, D. (2025). Canadian Bitcoin Ownership in 2023: Key Takeaways. Bank of Canada Staff Discussion Paper 2025-4. https://doi.org/10.34989/sdp-2025-4
Balutel, D., Henry, C. S., and Rusu, D. (2023). Cryptoasset Ownership and Use in Canada: An Update for 2022. Bank of Canada Staff Discussion Paper 2023-14. https://doi.org/10.34989/sdp-2023-14
Cheng, S. F., De Franco, G., Jiang, H., and Lin, P. (2019). Riding the blockchain mania: Public firms’ speculative 8-K disclosures. Management Science, 65(12), 5901–5913. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2019.3357
EBA, ESMA and EIOPA (2022). EU financial regulators warn consumers on the risks of crypto-assets. Joint statement, 16 March 2022.
EBA, ESMA and EIOPA (2025). EU Supervisory Authorities warn consumers of risks and limited protection for certain crypto-assets and providers. Joint statement, 6 October 2025.
European Central Bank (2024). Study on the payment attitudes of consumers in the euro area (SPACE) – 2024. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/ecb_surveys/space/html/ecb.space2024~19d46f0f17.en.html
Huynh, K. P., Henry, C. S., Nicholls, G., and Nicholson, M. W. (2020). Benchmarking Bitcoin adoption in Canada: Awareness, ownership and usage in 2018. Ledger, 5, 74–88. https://doi.org/10.5195/ledger.2020.206
Polasik, M., Piotrowska, A. I., Wisniewski, T. P., Kotkowski, R., and Lightfoot, G. (2015). Price fluctuations and the use of Bitcoin: An empirical inquiry. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 20(1), 9–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2016.1061413
Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 May 2023 on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA). Official Journal of the European Union, L 150, 9 June 2023.
Sestino, A., Rossi, M. V., and Faggioni, F. (2026). How would you like to pay? Consumers’ reaction to crypto-based vs. traditional e-payment methods for luxury vs. mass-market fashion products in e-commerce stores. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 30, 703–723. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-04-2025-0170