At emoneymerch.com we accept a variety of payment methods; many of which are cryptocurrencies of course. But, we don’t accept all cryptocurrency payment methods available to us at this time. Below we explain why. We are always open to increasing our crypto coin payment options to customers by request.
We like coins with long-term decentralized secure designs, fair and distributed coins, and low fee transactions. For this reason, we do no accept bitcoin because it has high transaction fees that would significantly reduce our profit margins when selling low-ticket items. On the opposite end, a cryptocurrency like NANO has 0 transaction fees which is great. This allows us to offer discounts to customers for using cryptocurrencies as payment for their order, because we pay fees to credit card processors for accepting fiat payments. Our general rule is, no crypto transaction fee should be more than 5 cents. So, we do not currently accept a coin like BTC, ETH, or dogecoin.
We generally like Proof of Stake for coins consensus, with preference to Nano’s design where no rewards are given to block validators. Mining through proof-of-work can lead to geographical centralization (due to cheaper electricity in some countries), and if the mining algorithm is most efficiently mined with ASICs, it is susceptible to centralization through economies of scale. The more profitable it is to mine with an ASIC, the more ASICs a company with lots of capital can buy to beat their competition. So, if a coin is being mined, we like ASIC resistance (XMR) a little more than ASIC prone algorithms (BTC, BCH, LTC, DGB, etc.).
The great thing about ASIC resistant mining algorithms is that a coin like Monero can be mined by people with normal computers. Stronger computers are more effective of course. But, the weakness with ASIC resistant mining is botnets/viruses can be infected on thousands of unknowing computers, and therefore used to mine Monero without their knowledge. Both ASIC resistant and ASIC prone networks are using electricity from unknown sources to solve meaningless number guessing games millions of times per second. This incentivizes using the cheapest electricity possible. So, whether you pollute the world with cheap electricity, use solar/renewable energy, or steal expensive energy to get free mining capability, the network does not care. As such, we prefer proof of stake and it’s derivatives in general, because the potential to indirectly pollute the environment should be lower. But, proof of stake consensus with rewards makes the rich richer (those who invest the most in staking get the most rewards in return). So, to repeat, the Nano network is an example of a network that does not have these centralizing prone characteristics. But, nothing is perfect; it may have other weaknesses (needing to come up with anti-spam mechanisms that don’t involve transaction fees).
The Nano network, like most blockchains, is a pseudonymous public/open network. In contrast, Monero is a privacy-first focused project, which we really value. When someone spends his or her Monero, the receiver does not have the ability to see how much the sender’s wallet has. Nor can the sender see how much the receiver has in their wallet.
Coins like XRP and XLM have founders or top-level organizations with a ton of the pre-mined initial supply. That worries us. And for that reason, we probably won’t be holding onto these coins for long if we receive them for a payment. More coins that can be potentially unleashed upon the current supply would cause inflation in the circulating supply, and possible extra coin price shocks to the downside. Most coins that are mined have pre-determined block rewards, so inflation is stable and predictable. Or, in Nano’s case, all coins are already released. But, any coin that has “whale” wallets is susceptible to those whales dumping their coins at once.
Wow, you’ve made it to the end! Those were the basic ideas and reasons why we accept the coins we do. How do you determine what cryptocurrency you want to support?
