Brits shun Bitcoin for online payments

Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - 11:27 by Mike Price

Almost three quarters of consumers in the UK would prefer to make their online purchases using traditional methods of payments, rather than embracing popular crypto-currency, Bitcoin, according to a study conducted by Venda.

Bitcoin has been big news in the past few months thanks to skyrocketing valuation, although it has also undergone significant fluctuation in price, leading to instability and questions over its viability as a digital currency in the long term.

Some retailers are starting to accept payment by Bitcoin when people carry out safe shopping online, but 71 per cent of respondents to the study said that they would not be comfortable with taking this route, even if it was made available to them.

A quarter of those questioned said that Bitcoin?s shaky recent performance is the main reason that they do not want to dabble in shopping transactions which involve it.

But by far the biggest issue for consumers in the UK is that they simply do not understand the underpinnings of crypto-currencies, of which Bitcoin is simply the most prominent, according to The Drum.

Report spokesperson, Eric Abensur, said that both shopping online and high street purchases will soon be influenced by the rise of Bitcoin and its contemporaries, even if consumers are currently unsure of what to make of this new way to pay.

Bitcoin was created to be very secure, or at least almost impossible to forge. But there have been instances in which people have lost millions of pounds worth of Bitcoins because they were tied to a digital wallet, stored on a device which went missing or was accidentally thrown away.

The age of the crypto-currency may just be starting, but it is going to impact e-commerce in a big way over the coming years.