The Bitcoin craze of 2017 made waves in the general populous. From people who have never knew what Cryptocurrencies were or how they operated to people avidly investing in Bitcoin and other types of Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has managed to singlehandedly bring Cryptocurrencies into the main stream.
However, if you did not manage to keep up with the massive cryptocurrency trend of 2017, you are missing the new age of decentralized digital currencies. However, before we go onto to tell you how Bitcoin can help small businesses with various problems and grow, let us first go over Bitcoin.
About Bitcoin
Bitcoin came into its own in 2009 and is a decentralized digital currency with no strings attached. In other words, like most other currencies, that first has to go through the bank and various other government bodies, Bitcoin is person to person and completely takes out the middle men, which in this case are the banks and various other government bodies.
The entire Cryptocurrency runs on a system called blockchain, a public distributed transaction ledger, which protects your Bitcoin wallet from fraud or theft. Blockchain keeps your investments safe by programming and digitalizing transactions to record not just economic transactions but virtually everything of value and store them in a public database. The blockchain network is a decentralized and democratized system that is managed throughout a web of cluster computers not owned by any single entity. A time-stamped series of immutable encrypted data stored in a shared incorruptible digital ledger makes it virtually impossible for anyone to hack into your investments or commit any kind of fraud.
Moreover, Bitcoin’s reliance on the digital format makes it much faster and cheaper than virtually any other cash exchange service in the world. Now you may be wondering, “This is all great, but how does this help me?” and to answer that let’s look at some of the other advantages of Bitcoin that you can take to boost your business.
1. Instant Transfers
One of, if not the major benefit, of companies using Bitcoin in their day-to-day transactions is their instant access. Credit card transactions, although without a doubt helpful, can feel be a serious pain. With the average bank taking three to five days to process a credit card transaction, the time before you can use any of your hard-earned cash can be incredibly long and taxing. Seeing how these five days do not include holidays or weekends, you can sometimes wait a lot more than just five days to use your money.
Bitcoin does not have this problem. Bitcoin allows you to use your money almost instantly seeing how there are no intermediaries like banks in between you and your money. This near instant transfer of money keeps your company running smoothly without stop and without worries.
2. Near To No Transaction Fees
If your company has to import and export goods, or has many international customers, then Bitcoin can really help in many ways. Borders or institutions do not limit Bitcoin, which makes it easy for people to transfer their money from one country to another without having to worry about differing currencies, exchange rates, or international transaction charges.
All of these taxes and charges can really drain your cash flow and make operating difficult. In addition, since Bitcoin has no center where the government can regulate it or tax it, you can avoid all sorts of needless fees on your transactions. Of course, this makes you a lot more susceptible to the fluctuating Bitcoin market, but more on this later.
3. Safe And Secure Information
While it is true that Bitcoin sure does come with its own fair share of downfalls and disadvantages, but what is possibly its greatest asset is the fact that all of your information is safe. No matter where you or your customers are, they will be able to make transactions knowing that all of their information is safe.
Thanks to blockchain, the technology that Bitcoin is based on, hackers can never gain access and alter any information about your transaction history or any other sensitive information. Since each block of data is secured, linearly and chronologically bound to other blocks in a chain, there is no single point of attack for hackers. Moreover, the system encrypts all the information. Therefore, unauthorized users can never tell one file from the other.
4. More Choice For Customers
Cryptocurrencies have slowly started to be become a acceptable form of payment among a large variety of companies. Famously Subway accepts Bitcoin for payments from customers, and companies like Microsoft and Dell have begun accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment. In other words, some people have become accustomed to paying for their goods using Bitcoin, making a company’s shift to Bitcoin even more likely.
Accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment also saves you from the trouble of having to go through fraudulent payment disputes. As all of your transactions are final and no third party can interrupt or interfere with that transaction, people will not be able to make fraudulent disputes.
5. Quite The Amazing Investment
Finally, taking payment in Bitcoin makes for a great investment, as you can keep the Bitcoin and wait for the price to fluctuate and actually make a profit on the money that you receive. This is of course not a sure fire deal, as the price fluctuates a lot more than various other commodities making it quite difficult to predict how well it will go.
Now if you are not someone who can handle the type of risk/reward associated with investing in Bitcoin, you can simply cash out the money that you receive to avoid the price from falling. However, by cashing out your earnings quickly you also leave behind the chance that you might make a profit off your earnings.
Conclusion
Bitcoin is a trailblazer, and in many ways paved the way for all future Cryptocurrencies to rise to their current glory. However, among other things, Bitcoin is responsible for introducing a new decentralized method of transferring money without the tedious paperwork, effort, and payment.
Now this decentralized system does not only benefit ordinary people or consumers, but also it can greatly benefit your small business in getting around various financial obstacles. Moreover, although there are definite shortcomings with Bitcoin, it is still leagues ahead of the current systems in place.
