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Bitcoin has struggled for years to win breakthrough adoption among sellers large and small, even though some major, e-commerce companies like Overstock-com, Newegg.com, and Microsoft Inc. have accepted the digital currency for at least a decade. But Bitcoin’ spotty acceptance may be masking some important advances among smaller and lesser-known merchants with physical storefronts. Some 9,926 brick-and-mortar sellers globally were accepting the coin as of the end of 2023, a 174% increase in that number over 2022, according to a report that appeared early Monday.
The report, from an online news site called Coinspeaker, is based on data collected by a group called BTC Map, a merchant organization that tracks the acceptance of “sats,” shorthand for “Satoshis,” or fractional bits of Bitcoin, around the world. The data is not broken down by merchant type. The importance of sats as a medium of exchange lies in the fact that a single Bitcoin trades in the tens of thousands of dollars. Early Monday, its price stood just shy of $45,000, delivering an $880 billion market capitalization.
The number of Bitcoin-accepting merchants, however, has fluctuated significantly over the past year. The BTC Map figures show it standing at 7,731 as of Oct. 9, 2022, and rising to 8,858 by Jan. 20. It then took a dip before surging to 9,560 by June 24 before collapsing to 7,873 by July 31. From there, the number began its steady climb to its current level
Bitcoin acceptance appears to be focused on North America, Latin America, and Europe, according to the data, with spottier acceptance in Africa and Asia, according to a map on the BTC Map site.
Bitcoin remains the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with Ethereum standing at a distant number 2. But the value volatility of most cryptocurrencies—stablecoins excepted—has long stood as an obstacle to merchant acceptance. Now, at least for the short term, the coin appears to be on an upswing among physical sellers, though the number remains a small minority.
