E-commerce is indisputably the future of the retail industry. It is fast eating the market share of traditional outlets across the globe, which has forced established players to expand their online presence to stay relevant in the ever growing competitive markets.
Similarly, cryptocurrencies are the future of money and transactions. Experts have estimated that about 50% of the global economy will be covered by cryptocurrencies as early as 2025-2027. This makes digital tokens extremely important, and hence, big corporations are investing big on the platform. Cryptocurrencies are now being accepted as valid instruments of payment by big companies around the world, which has made crypto adoption very much a success.
However, the most awaited move in the crypto space has to be the integration of cryptocurrencies with e-commerce, which is expected to change both the ecosystems completely. Till date, this has not been achieved completely, though positive signs have emerged in bits and pieces. The primary reason for the integration not materializing is the lack of payment platforms which allow traditional currencies to be paid via debit cards on online portals.
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Also, cybersecurity has been a big concern, as e-commerce platforms were not technologically advanced enough to accommodate crypto transactions. However, this is 2019, and things have improved substantially. To begin with, payments giant, VISA, which is among the major service providers for electronic funds transfer, announced earlier this year that it would be integrating blockchain technology with its global operations, in order to facilitate payments through digital tokens.
Moreover, major e-commerce portals including Amazon, Alibaba, Walmart-backed Flipkart, etc. have all invested heavily in the blockchain space to create DLT based solutions for various e-commerce functions. This has made them better equipped to accept crypto payments. On Tuesday, Erik Voorhees, CEO of ShapeShift, tweeted a video about how crypto payments can be made secure for e-commerce. Voorhees first described the current threats to security by hackers and vulnerability that crypto payments face.
Further, he introduced a new and more secure crypto payments implementation. Voorhees gave a live demonstration in the video posted on YouTube, which explains how the model works and how it can tackle hackers and frauds.
How crypto merchant payments and ecommerce will work in the near future (works across all chains): FIO E-Commerce Demonstration https://t.co/YyeWTqMh9a @joinFIO #bitcoin #ethereum #crypto #blockchain
— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) April 16, 2019
Recently, ShapeShift made a big statement by delisting Bitcoin SV in protest of Craig Wright’s legal bashing of his critics, who started campaigns against his false claim of being Satoshi Nakamoto. The move came following Binance and Karen crypto exchanges.
E-commerce and cryptocurrencies are two of the best technology products of the 21st Century which have revolutionized their respective segments. Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant, has just registered a crypto wallet, which would enable users to pay through crypto in the platform. Also, the largest e-commerce company in Switzerland, Digitec Galaxus, has also started to accept cryptocurrencies.
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The day both of these platforms get completely integrated, the world we see a paradigm shift in goods and services are purchased. All the recent developments suggest that this will surely happen. The marriage between e-commerce and cryptocurrencies is, of course, the most awaited one.
