Bitcoin adoption is on the rise and more and more brands are jumping on the bandwagon as the demand for BTC payments grows. Elektra, a well-known Mexican retail chain owned by billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, has become the first of its kind in the country to accept bitcoin payments. The owner of the retail and banking chain took to Twitter to confirm the news that had been circulating.
Yes, Elektra Accepts Bitcoin
Supermarket chain Elektra has confirmed that is now accepting bitcoin payments for all items. This payment will be available online as well as at all of the physical stores of the chain. Customers will be able to check out using bitcoin and crypto processing service Bitpay, which will process all of the payments on behalf of the chain.
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Billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego had confirmed the integration himself on Twitter saying, “The rumors are true. Elektra is the first (retail) store in Mexico that allows you to buy with bitcoin. I’m very sorry to beat the competition again.” The retail chain is now the first and only one of its kind presently in Mexico that accepts bitcoin payments for all of its goods.
Elektra is one of the leading retail and banking chains in Latin America. Its owner, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, the third richest man in Mexico, is a vocal bitcoin bull. The billionaire has been vocal about his support for the cryptocurrency countless times and has urged investors to put money into the digital asset. Salinas himself had revealed at one point that he has 10% of his wealth in the cryptocurrency.
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To push the new BTC payments, the supermarket chain is offering a 20% discount to all of its customers that pay through bitcoin on some purchases. The discount will run through the month of December and will conclude on December 31st.
Supermarket Chains Leading Adoption
Bitcoin as a method of payment for goods and services has been on the rise in recent years. Not just bitcoin but crypto payments as a whole have been on the rise.
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Earlier in the month, Croatia’s largest supermarket chain Konzum, announced that its customers could now pay for groceries with bitcoin. The supermarket chain had announced that although customers could only pay online using the cryptocurrency, for now, they were working to make BTC payments possible at its physical stores.
Litecoin had surged in price earlier in the year when rumors circulated that retail giant Walmart would begin accepting payments using the cryptocurrency. The rumors were later debunked by the chain but the reaction from the market had indicated that users were ready for the giants to begin integrating crypto payments.
Featured image from Glassdoor, chart from TradingView.com