If you’ve been watching the crypto craze lately and wondering if you should be taking payment in crypto, this is for you.
There are *A LOT* of cryptocurrencies, and not all of them are built for actual transactions. If you’re selling a service online though, or even via bricks and mortar shops for that matter, taking crypto can be a definite benefit.
Although they are very volatile, with prices fluctuating my multiple percentage points on a daily basis, they can be considered ‘assets’ rather than actual money. This means that if you’re taking payment in crypto, some of your income can be categorised as a long term investment rather than straight up cash. Which can be quite useful for tax purposes.
But many cryptos, especially the well known ones like Bitcoin and Ethereum are not really made for real world payment transactions. They’re too slow, the fees are too high and they’re a bit fiddly to send.
So, which are the best crypto currencies for taking payments, with the lowest fees and fastest transaction speed?
USDT: US Dollar Tether
The most popular of the stablecoins, USDT is an easy way to send payment and, best of all, it’s pegged to the US Dollar. So 1 USDT is roughly equal to $1.
As for fees, it’s only one dollar to send any amount, so long as you use the TRC20 network (Tron network). If you use the ERC20 network, the fee can vary and can be quite steep.
XRP: Ripple
Designed to be an online payment platform, Ripple/XRP is fast and easy to send payments. And, best of all, it’s super fast. In fact, sending a payment with XRP means it should arrive in seconds, as opposed to minutes for some of these crypto coins.
Fees for Ripple are also very reasonable, with the minimum transaction fee standing at 0.0001 XRP. That’s about as cheap as it gets.
XLM: Stellar Lumens
Another super fast payment system, XLM also has very low fees. In fact at 0.0001 XLM, it’s technically cheaper than XRP as the price is lower.*
Transaction speed is typically seconds, and Stellar Lumens is a coin with a big fan base and lots of potential too.
(Subject to change at a moments notice)
TRX: Tron
There is a weird love/hate relationship for crypto traders and TRX, down to the developer and the loss of value of the coin in recent times. But that’s an irrelavence when it comes to taking payments.
Tron is a fast network, with payments taking around one minute. And the transacion cost is super low, with 1 TRX currently $0.07 (ish). Fees can be as low as US$0.005.
XMR: Monero
When Venezuela’s currency collapsed, people turned to crypto to manage their transactions. One of the beneficaries of this was Monero. With low fees and a reasonable transaction speed, XMR is still a good choice for those looking to transfer money or settle a bill.
Fees are usually less than $0.01, but transaction time can be a few minutes – anything up to five or ten minutes to be precise.
BCH: Bitcoin Cash
Based on a fork of the original cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, BCH has several benefits over it’s bigger brother. It’s much faster to send your payment, with transactions taking a few minutes to arrive at most. And Bitcoin Cash has much lower transaction fees, with the average being around $0.025.
LTC: Litecoin
Another of the original cryptocurrencies and still a decent option to send payments online. If you’re looking for one of the best crypto currencies to manage online payments that is also a good investment, LTC is tipped for big things.
A transaction on Litecoin is typically just a few cents, as low as $0.01, with processing speeds of a couple of minutes.
How to take crypto payments online
If you want to take crypto payments for your business, or even as personal remittances sending money overseas, you’ll need a crypto wallet.
You can use an exchange such as Binance, Kucoin or Huobi. This is also a good way to manage your crypto and trade if you want.
You’ll need to provide your wallet details so people can pay you, normally either a QR code for your chosen coin, or a long code.
Online crypto payments can also be taken with a payment system such as BitPay or Coinbase Commerce. Both of these are easily integrated into your website to allow visitors to quickly and easily checkout using one of the supported cryptocurrencies.
So there you have it, the best crytp coins for online payments in 2021. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
