Ethereum was released in 2015, long after Bitcoin, which has gained value since 2009. Despite the competition, the cryptocurrency could withstand the market’s volatility, becoming the second most popular digital currency. At the same time, the blockchain is packed with incredible features, from smart contracts to the materials for creating NFTs.
With so many apparent advantages, investors discuss worldwide adoption, which would propel Ethereum into the mainstream, allowing regular people and all kinds of businesses to use it freely. And there are many reasons for adoption to happen, but the countries’ economies are not prepared to balance their financial approaches to the newness of cryptocurrencies. Interestingly enough, an increasing number of users are paying with Ethereum for certain products and services.
4 Reasons to Accept Ethereum
Could Ethereum be a reliable payment alternative? Here are some reasons why companies might consider adopting Ethereum payment gateway.
Rapid Transactions
Ethereum’s fast transaction feature was already high-speed, but it increased considerably after the Merge when the consensus mechanism changed from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. The change led to low costs and high execution speeds that could process up to 100.000 TPS.
On the other hand, VISA can process up to 24.000 TPS and is a centralized business, which makes Ethereum a better alternative. Introducing Ethereum as a payment gateway into your business will appeal to a new target audience and therefore expand the view for the company’s development.
Worldwide Digital Currency
Unlike most payment methods, Ethereum is used on a decentralized blockchain that anyone on the globe can operate with only a digital wallet. Plus, using Ethereum eliminates almost all exchange rates, which can be enormous for transactions in certain countries, given the currency conversion.
Decentralization allows for decision-making processes within a distributed network. This feature provides a trustless environment for all participants, which is more efficient than centralized or distributed systems. Ethereum’s decentralization makes it easy to use in countries where people can’t access basic financial services or are blocked by bureaucracy.
Provides Secure Payments
The decentralized smart-contract platform is considered one of the safest in existence since it uses a huge amount of computational power to verify and secure each transaction. Therefore, it’s almost impossible for third parties to interfere in the network.
Some ways Ethereum prioritizes security include staking withdrawals, defending against attacks through SSF (single slot finality) and protecting validators through secret leader election (SLE) so that attackers can’t identify spam validators.
Expand Your Business
If your company doesn’t allow any crypto transactions, introducing this feature will reach an extended and increasing customer audience, including those who invest regularly and are more secure in digital coins rather than fiat money.
At the same time, if the business only allows for Bitcoin payments, including Ethereum is a power move. That’s because the competitors may have better or worse volatility in some cases, enabling users to choose the one with the best value at a certain moment.
Why should users pay with Ethereum?
Of course, there are many benefits for companies to use Ethereum, but things change when it comes to regular users. Customers need to have a high level of trust to put their digital coins through a payment gateway of a business that has just introduced this feature. At the same time, they also need to decide if the cryptocurrency is reliable.
The potential of Ethereum provides customers with more than a store of value. Ethereum is to be trusted because it always enables developments and upgrades, which means that regardless of the challenge, the problem will be tackled with an upcoming improvement. This is what happened when the Merge occurred―customers had a hard time with increased fees and network congestion, which is why PoW was left behind for PoS.
Using Ethereum is also a solution against inflation due to its economic model that was created as a deflationary asset. These currencies work as their value increases due to a reduction in supply. This means that the coin’s market value attracts more customers for investments.
However, Ethereum transactions have some disadvantages
Ethereum is among the new cryptocurrencies, so its level of development isn’t that high, considering it hasn’t even reached the then-year milestone on the market. Therefore, considerable issues are still present to this day and are tackled in a known manner.
The increasing gas fee is one of the most known challenges of using Ethereum for transactions. These costs were almost insignificant a few years ago, but how they reached up to $80 in times of crisis is too much for any investor to handle. And although improvements have been made in this sector, the lack of scalability hinders developers from avoiding network congestion, which is one of the main causes of high fees.
At the same time, Ethereum can be pretty volatile in pricing, although this is where Bitcoin overpowers it. As of November 2021, Ethereum recorded its highest volatility percentages but has maintained a relatively stable parcourse. However, the price of Ethereum can be influenced by multiple factors, from media coverage to investor sentiment. Other factors, such as worldwide events and social and financial regulations, also form these elements. This cycle isn’t easy to predict, so Ethereum will be one of the first affected when something happens with the world.
The Ethereum roadmap will approach a multitude of challenges
Vitalik Buterin has already published the Ethereum roadmap, explaining how each upcoming update will be tackled. The main points of interest include cheaper transactions, extra security, better user experience, and future-proofing. The roadmap can be changed over time to adapt to the changes surveyed by how previous updates unfold, so we expect that the Surge, the Verge or the Purge will have different approaches in the future compared to the actual roadmap.
Bottom line
Companies can expand their opportunities by allowing Ethereum to be one of the payment alternatives to card and fiat money. That’s because the cryptocurrency leverages great security, fast transactions and worldwide acceptance in the digital sector. Still, Ethereum has challenges that customers must be wary of before risking their assets.
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