Bitcoin is gaining such prominence in value and adoption that it’s making major online brands sit up and take notice.
Yesterday, bitcoin’s price soared through the $3,400 mark, zeroing in on the $3,500 milestone. With ethereum steadily climbing to $300, the market cap exceeded that of $120 billion for the first time. It has since slipped back down to $118 billion.
There are, of course, already plenty of major brands that accept bitcoin as a form of payment: Starbucks, Subway, Dell, Expedia, Overstock.com and Microsoft.
Yet, what about the other major brands?
To see what others thought of bitcoin, the team behind Coingeek undertook an experiment. Their aim was to persuade twenty of the top online retail brands to accept the digital currency for payments. They did this by sending each of the financial directors $100 worth of bitcoin via a QR code.
The companies they chose included: Alibaba, Amazon, Tesco, Staples, Uber, McDonalds, Netflix, Airbnb, American Airlines, LVMH, AT&T, CVS Health, Tesla, Apple, FedEx, John Lewis PLC, Spotify, BMW and Red Bull.
At the time, Laurence Tosi from Airbnb was the only one to take up the free bitcoin. Now, though, he has also been joined by the likes of John J. Stephen from AT&T and Derek Kerr from American Airlines who have redeemed their vouchers,
Whether or not this means that the companies will start accepting the digital currency as a form of payment remains to be seen. Aside from getting some free bitcoins, it may show their interest in trying something new.
Overstock Accepts 40+ Altcoins
As one company that has promoted cryptocurrency adoption, Overstock has been accepting bitcoin payments since 2014.
Now, though, the online retailer has enabled customers to make purchases using ether, litecoin, Dash, NEM, or any of the other 40+ altcoins after integrating the ShapeShift API into its payment system.