We have another month of crypto news and BitPay happenings, including an exciting new partnership, a product integration and more updates around global crypto adoption. Don’t forget to check out what ‘swap’ means and learn more about BitPay Reload in our product highlight.
In This Issue:
BitPay in the Spotlight
- UATP, a global payment network owned and operated by the airlines, has partnered with us to start accepting crypto payments and attract new business. Read the announcement here.
- Our CEO, Stephen Pair discusses why it’s important for the approach to crypto regulation to go “carefully and cautiously”. Read on here.
- We recently announced our integration with 1inch Network, which will allow BitPay Wallet holders to swap ETH and ERC-20 tokens and benefit from the best rates and fastest transactions. Read the press release here.
- We were featured by BTC Manager as the best crypto trading apps. See what other apps made the list.
- Our CFO, Jagruti Solanki sat down with PYMNTS to discuss the findings of our survey of more than 8,000 U.S. consumers that highlighted the motives that are now compelling people to want to spend cryptocurrency. Learn more about why she thinks crypto is here to stay.
- US cardholders of the BitPay Prepaid Mastercard can now add their card to Google Wallet and spend using Google Pay. Read the press release for more information.
Other Industry News
Here’s a list of some of the most significant happenings in crypto over this past month:
- Mastercard showed its increased interest in the crypto market by entering into an agreement to buy CipherTrace, a tool that helps businesses and law enforcement root out illicit digital currency transactions. Find out more here.
- Ukraine is on its way to legalizing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies after Parliament overwhelmingly passed a new digital asset law. Learn more here.
- According to a recent survey, lack of knowledge on crypto is the main impediment to increased investments by young adults in the UK, but the majority are eager to learn more about crypto. Read the full article here.
- Global crypto adoption has gone up by 881% in the last year, with Vietnam, India and Pakistan firmly in the lead. This map shows where cryptocurrency is taking off around the world.
- One day after El Salvador officially adopted the cryptocurrency, Panama unveiled a bill to make Bitcoin a legal tender.
- With the new adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele estimates that money services providers like Western Union and MoneyGram will lose $400 million a year in commissions for remittances. Read the full article here.
- Microstrategy, Bitcoin’s biggest corporate investor bought another $177 million, boosting holdings to $5.4 billion. Read the Forbes article here.
- Bitcoin’s recent rise helped push the value of the entire cryptocurrency market above $2 trillion on August 14 for the first time since mid-May. Learn more here.
BitPay Bids Welcome to New Businesses
It’s our monthly pleasure - and great honor - to welcome aboard new BitPay partners using our products and services. We’re excited to announce our partnerships, which include another private jet charter service, a sports app and a popular online marketplace. Please join us in saying hello to these new, exceptional members of the BitPay family!
- Outlier Jets - Private jet card and charter services for individuals and organizations (Email Billing)
- Pick Perfect - A daily fantasy sports app (Email Billing and Deposit)
- Shop.com An online marketplace offering a variety of products from leading brands at competitive prices (Online Checkout)
- UATP - The airline owned payment network accepted by thousands of merchants for air, rail, hotel and travel agency payments. (Online Checkout)
BitPay Merchant Spotlight: Namecheap.com
Namecheap began in 2000 with a mission to deliver the best domains at the best prices with the best service. Since then they’ve added hosting, security, managed WordPress, and a whole range of innovations to their platform. Now managing more than 13 million domains for customers around the world, they’ve grown to 1,700 employees in 17 countries.
We’re proud to call Namecheap a partner since 2013 and wish them lots of continued success.
BitPay Merchant Shout-outs
- Sonic Electronix for highlighting “Pay with Crypto” and BitPay on their homepage.
- Eight Sleep for sending an email announcement to their customer base promoting crypto payments via BitPay.
- Shop.com for announcing on their main header they Accept Cryptocurrency through BitPay.
- Luxury Collection, a luxury car dealer from Finland and a BitPay merchant since 2014, has expanded their crypto acceptance by signing up their second dealership in Estonia and doing their first car sale (more than $300k) from this location.
- Genny.com, a high-end luxury brand from Italy, for fully integrating the BitPay checkout flow and including the BitPay payment mark.
BitPay Charitable Spotlight: Code.org
A BitPay partner since May 2020, Code.org is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by young women and students from other underrepresented groups. They strive to give every student in every school the opportunity to learn computer science as part of their core K-12 education and are now the leading provider of K-12 computer science curriculum in the largest school districts in the United States. Code.org also created the annual Hour of Code campaign, which has engaged more than 15% of all students in the world.
They’re using the BitPay Hosted Donation product to make it simple to accept contributions on their website. To support this amazing cause, please visit their website here.
Word of the Month: Swap
Swap in crypto terms means to take one type of crypto that you own and exchange it for another without having to first sell your crypto in order to buy the other. Essentially, it is a crypto-to-crypto exchange.
The primary reason users would want to “swap” is so they can easily exchange crypto for another asset they believe will grow or move out of volatile assets into one of the accepted stablecoins and hedge against real world events.
Our recent integration with the 1Inch Network enables users the ability to get the best crypto swap rates quickly with a user-friendly, seamless swap process without leaving the wallet. For more information, read the announcement here.
Product Spotlight: BitPay Reload
BitPay Reload is our deposit product, which empowers your customers to reload their stored-value accounts with cryptocurrency. Funds are immediately converted to fiat, available in minutes, and free of fraud chargebacks. It also has lower fees than traditional card deposits.
BitPay Reload is the ideal deposit solution for companies that seek a deposit funding source from customers. For example, prepaid debit cards, casinos that have stored-value accounts for gamblers, FX trading websites, any app or e-wallet that allows for self-funding, digital wallets, or any other product/service seeking to increase customer deposits. It’s faster than wire transfers/ACH, no fraud chargebacks and has lower fees than credit cards.
You can find more information about BitPay Reload here.
Marketing Spotlight: APMEX / Dogecoin Campaign
This month we’re highlighting APMEX, one of the world’s largest and most trusted sources for Precious Metals for their Dogecoin campaign. The campaign highlighted a new design of Gold or Silver Dogecoin rounds and offered a 50% discount on fees across all products purchased with crypto.
APMEX did an exceptional job at creating awareness for their Dogecoin campaign to crypto holders by using a variety of marketing tactics, including landing page content, a dedicated email, homepage hero banners on their website and app, social media posts and paid media campaigns.
Want ideas on how to do the same or share your existing marketing campaigns with us? Submit your questions or marketing campaigns to marketing@bitpay.com.
Did You Know?
BitPay supports all crypto wallets and exchanges, 90+ and growing (including, Coinbase, Exodus, Metamask, Blockchain, Electrum, Trust, Ledger, Gemini and Kraken), representing more than 100 million global customers.
Forrester Study
A commissioned study for BitPay from Forrester Research confirmed what merchants are already discovering in real-life practice: that businesses adopting bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment methods experience, on average, 40% more customers, a twofold increase in order values, and fewer chargebacks, among many other benefits.
