QR codes’ popularity extends to crypto payments
Utah Jazz fans looking to purchase non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of their favorite players need go no further than the stadium seats.
As part of the NBA team’s move to embrace cryptocurrency and NFTs, each seat was imprinted with a QR code that goes to the NFT marketplace of crypto exchange CoinZoom, where fans can buy media-bearing tokens directly and for cash.
“The NBA team wanted to offer NFTs to reward their fan base, but they didn’t want to have to go through this difficult process to do it,” said Todd Crosland, founder and CEO of Salt Lake City-based CoinZoom , to PYMNTS .
Going through an exchange can be a hassle-free process, starting with getting a digital wallet and running through having to buy ether tokens to pay for the NFTs – although that’s starting to get easier as marketplaces adopt card payments.
See also: How to buy an NFT in 19 easy steps
More generally, QR codes have been widely adopted in the crypto payment industry as the easiest way to allow crypto owners to spend their tokens directly at the point of sale (POS) without acquiring a Visa or Mastercard branded crypto debit card.
Around the Earth
The biggest user of QR codes in the crypto world is arguably China, where the government has issued them to merchants across the country so they can accept payments in the new central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan, or e-CNY.
It’s an important enough payment tool that the People’s Bank of China looks set to roll out a single standardized QR code system, where dominant payment apps AliPay and WeChat QR codes will be joined by e-CNY as a payment option – giving it a push against the private digital payment systems that account for more than 90% of China’s mobile payments, Bloomberg reported on September 14.
Major Latin American cryptocurrency exchange Bitso rolled out a QR code-based payment system for its 1 million customers in Argentina, where the declining economy and inflation rate approaching 80% make crypto payments much more popular. The exchange’s app will generate a QR code that can be used to pay in either the local fiat currency or cryptocurrencies from customers’ accounts.
“This is a particularly important product offering for Argentina, as it provides users with protection against adverse economic factors such as inflation and currency devaluation,” said Bitso Senior Vice President of Product Santiago Alvarado, according to Bitcoin.com. “In addition to increasing economic opportunity for users, Bitso fulfills its mission to make crypto useful.”
Increasing popularity
Among other things, QR codes are becoming more and more popular with digital payments in general, as they are easy to use and interoperable, whether from a bank, FinTech or crypto payment processor.
The Transfers 3.0 system launched in Argentina last year connects to all digital wallets and can be accepted by any business, regardless of where the code originates. It has proven successful enough that Argentina has the third highest volume of online purchases in Latin America, according to PYMNTS’ “Digitizing Payments in Latin America” handbook.
Read more: How the demand for digital and contactless payments is growing in Latin America
Mexico has also launched a new interoperable mobile QR code payment system, and digital wallet adoption has taken off to the point where it is expected to surpass debit and credit cards by 2024, the Playbook said.
Further afield, Bahrain’s central bank has joined local fintech Eazy Financial Services’ EazyPay app and top crypto exchange Binance’s merchant payment service, Binance Pay, to launch a crypto payment service in the kingdom.
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