Due to a partnership between a payments startup Flexa and the Winklevoss-owned exchange Gemini, customers of Amazon’s Whole Foods can use Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Gemini Dollar as a payment method.
Despite some are staying skeptic about digital currencies, every day there appears more evidence that cryptos are taking the world. Recently, Whole Foods, a company owned by the e-commerce giant Amazon, has announced they are accepting cryptos as a payment method. The currencies accepted include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Gemini Dollar (GUSD).
The initiative results from a partnership between a US payments startup Flexa and the Winklevoss-owned regulated cryptocurrency exchange Gemini.
We’re excited to partner with @Gemini to make it easy to use your cryptocurrency at some of your favorite stores! 🤝 https://t.co/XYUOgI2rPz
— Flexa (@FlexaHQ) May 13, 2019
Due to the partnership, users will be able to spend their cryptos at numerous retailers via the Flexa’s SPEDN app released at Consensus 2019 on May 13. The app is based on existing payments infrastructure used to accept digital payments such as Apple Pay. It is notable that each SPEDN wallet is securely custodied. To identify payments from the app, all the retailers must tweak their scanners. Moreover, SPEDN is easy to use. It has an intuitive interface that enables customers to make crypto payments quickly and easily by simply holding up the app on their smartphone at the point of sale.
Merchants have the option to receive their payment in cryptocurrency or dollars. According to Flexa, with SPEDN, they will be able to lower processing fees, reduce fraud, and preserve user privacy with their new cryptocurrency-enabled network.
Gemini team stated:
“With Flexa, merchants get significantly less expensive and fraud-resistant transactions, can use the same payment hardware they currently use, and receive payment in fiat currency, not crypto. We believe that not only will this result in cost-savings to the merchant, but to the consumer in the long-term as well.”
Tyler Winklevoss commented:
“More broadly speaking, this is exciting for cryptocurrency users and our community as a whole. At Gemini, we have been trying to build a bridge from the island of crypto to the mainland of finance for the past five years. Flexa’s mission is to link the island of crypto to the mainland of retail merchants. Together, by providing Flexa with trusted custody and infrastructure, we hope to profoundly improve the payment experience; and merchants who are currently subject to overly complex, expensive legacy systems of credit and debit cards stand to benefit significantly.”
He added:
“The inspiration of living on crypto is now a truth. You have to well even now discontinue it. For the user, it amounts to being crypto conscious. It’s take care of being inexperienced.”
In addition to Whole Foods, the initiative extends to other merchants. SPEDN has already partnered with 15 of the biggest retailers in the United States, including Crate and Barrel, Nordstrom, Petco, Regal Cinemas, Gamestop, Baskin Robbins, Lowe’s, and more. In the near future, more big-name retail partners will be announced.
Currently, Flexa is working on expanding the acceptance of its SPEDN app by eventually releasing Wallet SDK, a simple drop-in developer kit that will let other companies incorporate Flexa payments into their own apps with a minimum of efforts.
