Payment gateway Bitcoin Superstore tweeted on September 8, 2018, discussing which cryptocurrencies customers actually use to make purchases from businesses. Bitcoin was the most used coin, of course, but although they accept most currencies in the top ten, it was Nano, rank #30 in market cap that took the spot of most popular altcoin on the site.
https://twitter.com/BitcoinSuperst1/status/1038475506394558464
Nano on the Rise
We are still a long way from the day when most retailers and online businesses will accept cryptocurrencies directly. In the meantime, many crypto startups are beginning to offer conversion services, where you pay them with coins and they, for a small fee, pay businesses in fiat on your behalf.
Bitcoin Superstore is one of these services. You can make purchases directly from some businesses, like Amazon, and purchase gift cards for many more, from ebay to Starbucks to Gamestop. For this they charge a 2% flat fee – better than most crypto/fiat gateways.
This past Saturday, the company’s twitter account released details on which coins customers are actually using for their purchases. To the surprise of probably no one, daddy Bitcoin was the most used cryptocurrency, accounting for 35% of the company’s volume. In second place, however, was Nano, the fee-less DAG coin with a five second confirmation time.
Underdog Making Waves
Nano originally came into the spotlight in early December 2017, when the market was booming and Bitcoin’s congestion issues were causing investors to start looking for currencies with the potential to be better, well, currencies.
After an initial meteoric rise to fame, however, Nano bled alongside every other alt as the market crashed and began its painful decline, which has now been going on for three quarters of a year.
Nano’s explosive price growth just before the market wide crash has left a lot of speculators with nothing but losses from the coin, souring perception of the project in some communities. It also likely didn’t help when Bitgrail owner Francesco Firano tried to blame Nano for the hack that led to the exchange’s demise.
On a technical level however Nano seems to be doing very well. Although the coin’s non-blockchain architecture led to some initial concerns that it may have vulnerabilities older coins like Bitcoin do not have, none have been found so far, and recent weeks have seen Nano’s price performing better than most alts, including giants like Ethereum and fellow DAG coin IOTA.
