Swiss biggest online retailer now accepts Bitcoin
Digitec Galaxus AG, Switzerland’s largest online retailer, on Tuesday announced that it will begin accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, according to local news outlet Watson. Customers will be able to use bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and more to pay for consumer electronics and other goods from today.
Swiss cryptocurrency fans have been able to buy bitcoin from ticket machines at Swiss Federal Railways stations, since 2016, but have had few places to spend them. Now they will be able to spend their coins on any of Digitec’s 2.7 million products.
There are a few restrictions. For now, only Swiss residents will be able to use the service—although it may expand to Germany where it already has an online presence. There is a steep minimum payment of 200 Swiss Francs ($200), but there is no maximum payment.
The company’s Chief innovation officer Oliver Herren outlined a number of ways it might be useful to spend Bitcoin, saying, “Because you have some and you want to use them? Or because you can’t turn them into real money because your bank does not accept the money? Just because you can do it? Or because you like to try new things?”
The added crypto assets include Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Binance Coin (BNB), Litecoin (LTC), Tron (TRX), NEO (NEO), and OmiseGO (OMG). However, they can only be applied to orders that exceed CHF 200, which is about $200. Right now, the website shows around 2.7 million products, offering everything from computers for gaming to wheat beer.
This new option is part of a collaboration that is starting off a pilot project between Digitec Galaxus, Coinfy, and Datatrans. When the user decided to make the purchase, the system creates a 15-minute window, during which time the rates of the included cryptocurrencies do not change so that the user can make the payment. Along with the payment, the users will have to cover a 1.5% fee for the purchase.
As the company gets into the crypto industry, they have also added a crypto wallet category to the ecommerce platform, which was announced under a blog post called “Diamonds or Gold Are Better Suited to Get Rid of Illicit Money.” Chief innovation officer Oliver Herren said that he still does not have faith in the blockchain ledger over the traditional systems, but he adds that it is possible that he has not “invested enough time.”
The company also released a blog post that discussed the crypto integration, as a result of the internal engineering team. The post is predominantly regarding an interview with the company, explaining blockchain technology.
In net sales, Digitec Galaxus brought in over $261 million last year, according to data from ecommerceDB. The online platform was first started in 2010 and is presently the 341st largest retailer online.
There have been multiple online retailers to look at cryptocurrency as an option for payments on their platform. One of the best examples of this implementation is Overstock.com, which started accepting Bitcoin in 2014. Bunz Trading Zone, an online trading barter platform in Canada, announced last year in April that they would be launching a crypto asset of their own.
This is a positive move in the right direction towards Switzerland’s acceptance of Bitcoin and gives the growing number of startups located in the area—such as investors CV Venture Capital and the blockchain platform Dfinity—a big sign of encouragement.