Bitcoin can be spent in many places, online and offline. Many stores accept bitcoin directly, such as:
Travel website Expedia
Homeware store Overstock
Space travel company Virgin Galactic
Mobile network provider AT&T
The list of stores accepting bitcoin directly is increasing every day and many individual stores, restaurants and cafes have begun accepting it – just look out for a “bitcoin accepted here” sign.
Aside from stores directly accepting bitcoin, you can buy gift cards for most large companies via bitcoin. Services such as eGifter and Gyft allow customers to buy gift cards for thousands of stores using bitcoin, including:
Bitcoin can also be used to buy other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin and Ethereum, as well as donate to charities. Additionally, there are ways to earn bitcoin as cash back when spending online. Applications such as Lolli and Fold can grant users a % of their spend as cash back in bitcoin, which is helping to increase the adoption of bitcoin.
As bitcoin adoption becomes more widespread, more and more stores are likely to start accepting bitcoin directly as payments. Bitcoin saves on the card processing fees charged by most card processors (often around 30 pence per transaction) which may seem like an inconsequential amount. However, when companies are doing thousands or millions of transactions a day, it soon adds up. Bitcoin eliminates these feeds on the business side and requires the customer to pay a very small fee (decreasing every day with the introduction of the lightning network, often below a two pence) in order to send their payment.
However, the current taxation rules surrounding cryptocurrencies mean that in most jurisdictions, bitcoin is treated as an asset rather than a currency. Therefore, every time bitcoin is spent by an individual, they must keep a record of it and calculate their gains or losses as a result of that disposal. Luckily, the bitcoin blockchain is a record of all transactions so this is easy to track when using an automated tax application such as Recap.
Need to sort out your crypto taxes? Use Recap, the privacy focused cryptocurrency accounting software to calculate the taxable gain or loss on your cryptocurrency investments!