Bitcoin is gaining ground as a payment method for food delivery

To say that bitcoin has been volatile would be an understatement. After falling more than 70% from its peak a year ago, it has recently been whipped into the middle of FTX’s high-profile slide toward bankruptcy.

And yet, for an intrepid and growing base of consumers, the marquee name in cryptocurrency is proving to be an attractive choice for everyday uses, including getting food delivered to their doorstep.

Theo Kuipers, director of payments at Just Eat Takeway.com, told PYMNTS that individuals in Europe who have embraced crypto, who have kept the digital coins on their balance sheets, are looking for a way to fight inflation and maintain purchasing power. In many cases, they can sit on significant gains that can in turn be distributed to wider trading settings.

The company started accepting bitcoin payments in the Netherlands and many other counties in 2013. It does not charge any additional fees for bitcoin payments.

Kuipers said that while consumer use has been varied, the runway is long, given relatively low penetration. Bitcoin may not be among the top payment options in many of the European countries where Just Eat operates, but it should gain traction.

“This is an advanced payment method that we naturally want to offer to our customers, especially those who have embraced digitization.”

Consumer interest in using crypto is growing. Joint research between PYMNTS and BitPay has found that a quarter of consumers prefer to shop with merchants that accept cryptocurrency. As many as 23% said they own or have owned crypto in the past 12 months, up from 16% a year ago. In the US, as many as eight out of 10 consumers have used bitcoin to pay online or in a store.

Smaller ticket transactions

The average food order on the Just Eat platform comes in at around 24 euros (about $24). Generally speaking, consumers tend to use crypto for much bigger ticket items, so the tide may be changing a bit. The “heavy users” of cryptos, those who trade increasingly frequently, are those who will be more comfortable using bitcoin in their everyday life.

There is a positive ripple effect that comes with offering bitcoin as a payment option, Kuipers said: Consumers who use bitcoin to pay do so again and again.

“There’s a very consistent pattern of use here,” he said.

By leveraging BitPay, which converts crypto to local fiat, Just Eat is not challenged by the volatility that is a hallmark of crypto.

“We get paid in whatever local currency is necessary to pass on to the restaurants, and we take receipt of funds and pass them through,” Kuipers said.

Looking ahead, he said crypto may not just be a consumer-facing option; it may find its way to becoming a behind-the-scenes payment option as restaurants pay for delivery and in-house staff, and even inventory.

“It’s definitely a possibility” as time goes on, he said.

As Kuipers told PYMNTS, “the consumers on our platform who use cryptocurrencies do so with the conviction that this is the way the whole world will move.”

For all PYMNTS crypto coverage, subscribe to the daily Crypto newsletter.

How consumers pay online with stored credentials
Convenience prompts some consumers to store their payment information with merchants, while security concerns give other customers pause. For “How We Pay Digitally: Stored Credentials Edition,” a collaboration with Amazon Web Services, PYMNTS surveyed 2,102 U.S. consumers to analyze the consumer dilemma and reveal how merchants can win over holdouts.