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Citing data from Chainalysis, Reuters is reporting that Bitcoin's retail payments have dropped by 80% in September, and no recovery has been mentioned.
Several factors are to blame, including the scalability of Bitcoin transactions (and their expensive nature as a result) and the volatility of the same currency. To have mass adoption and continued growth in the retail payments industry, more retailers will have to accept the currency. For this to happen, market conditions must be met and retailers must see it as an added value.
BitPay has recently taken a series of measures to make the service more attractive for retailers who want to protect the dollar value of their sales. In addition to the basic value of allowing dealers to accept Bitcoin and cash in dollars, BitPay has added three "stablecoins" to its arsenal, giving retailers more flexibility and increasing the likelihood that some of them will remain in the encrypted market with their money, at least tangentially.
Lightning Network Yet not tested
There is also the advent of the Lightning network, which eliminates the problems associated with high transaction fees, network congestion and the limit of the number of transactions that can be processed. At least in theory. The way payment channels work, a retailer who wanted to be able to process $ 1 billion transactions over a period of time should open a channel that would allow it.
Bitcoin retail transactions generally increase with the price of the ticker, as the purchasing power of a single unit rises dramatically. The persistent relative difficulty of acquisition makes it less interesting to spend the coins on a regular basis, unless you see an increase in the amount of things you can buy. At the same time, the regulatory situation is still obscure as regards all types of encrypted transactions. In some cases, a user may be subject to capital gains tax if he spends his Bitcoin to buy goods or services.
Chainalysis spoke with 17 leading Bitcoin payment processors to determine the total decline of 80% (in terms of value, not necessarily of BTC transactions). Public data obtained on Coinpayments.net, which processes transactions for dozens of traditional cryptocurrencies, showed that it had seen a fall of 50% in the first half of the year.
Actual transactions with Bitcoin were constant, though not extreme, with a maximum of January of over 350,000 in one day
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