According to the Australian Financial Review report, about 1,200 vending machines in Australia and New Zealand have started to accept the leading cryptocurrency bitcoin as a legal tender. The deal comes by way of Centrapay, a digital payments startup from New Zealand. The vending machines in New Zealand and Australia display Q.R. codes, and customers can scan them with their smartphones when using the crypto payments and messenger app, Sylo. Bitcoin is instantly converted to Newzealand or the Australian dollar.
“Accepting bitcoin is the next step for us as digital assets become more popular.”
A spokesperson from the bottling company that handles Coca-Cola in Australia, New Zealand, and four other countries in the Asia-Pacific, said that they started using Q.R. codes a few years ago “to service Alipay and WeChat Pay customers in tourist hotspots.” Alipay and WeChat Pay are quite popular in China, and both the apps use fiat currencies rather than cryptocurrencies. The spokesperson said that they want to ensure customers can transact with them in their preferred currency, so accepting digital assets is the natural next step for as digital assets become more popular.
Bitcoin continues to get mainstream exposure.
Since bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto almost a decade ago, the leading cryptocurrency has come quite far. Bitcoin is gradually gaining mainstream attention as more and more people get on board each year. More and more merchants all around the world are gradually opening up to the idea of accepting bitcoin. But there is still a long way to got for bitcoin to go mainstream.
Global P.O.S., which produces point-of-sale systems for retailers, plans to roll out crypto payments to 25,000 French stores this year, among them Decathlon, Sephora, and Foot Locker. All 6,000 7-Eleven stores in the Philippines now offer cryptocurrency purchases.
