Huge Move For Bitcoin Adoption In South America

The adoption of Bitcoin is slowly starting to gain traction outside of North America and Asia. Internationally we are seeing large groups of companies that are exploring cryptocurrency payments within Europe and across South America and parts of Africa too. Bitcoin really is an intercontinental asset, which is one of the reasons of course that Bitcoin still reigns as the most popular cryptocurrency in the world.

Recent reports suggest that a big move has been made within Brazil towards the fully mainstream adoption of Bitcoin in that Oásis Supermercados, a supermarket chain based in Rio de Janeiro has started to accept cryptocurrency payments. Within this move, the company have also trained up all staff on the ins and outs of cryptocurrency, so they can be confident that transactions are being handled in the most efficient way possible.

What happens when you educate people about Bitcoin - they go and invest.

According to CCN, the supermarket will now accept payments in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash ABC and Litecoin. Douglas Andrade, one of the company managers has discussed why the company have moved towards adopting these cryptocurrencies, stating that:

“It’s really easy. It’s like a payment by credit card. The client says which cryptocurrency he wants to pay, the operator types in reais and the system already converts to that crypto. Then just scan the QR code and you’re done.”

Oásis Supermercados currently employ 90 people, with an annual turnover of around $6.5 million, so they aren’t by any means the biggest firm in Brazil, but the adoption of crypto in this space is a big deal. Supermarkets are some of the most essential brick and mortar stores around, with a huge customer base. What this does is it at the very least encourages a number of new people to actually go on to explore cryptocurrency with the view to perhaps invest one day. Most importantly, it normalises Bitcoin as a part of our traditional shopping spaces - an important step for Bitcoin adoption.

The company will be partnering up with CoinWISE in order to process the crypto payments. CoinWISE will handle all transfers between Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash ABC and of course, Litecoin and will convert payments into local currency which will be handed back down to the supermarket.

It will be interesting to see how many customers of Oásis Supermercados start to take up cryptocurrency as a payment option, in a years time, who knows, crypto payments could be the firms largest form of income.