How well does the Ether perform as a currency for payments?

This might be surprising to some, but Ether has been standing strong as the second most popular payment currency on CoinGate for a long time now. 

The reasons why ETH is performing so well are quite obvious, apart from it being the largest cryptocurrency by market cap after Bitcoin. 

First off, the transactions on Ethereum blockchain are confirmed within 20 seconds, which makes it one of the faster blockchains in the market. If that is not good enough of a reason, executing a transaction would cost you around 0.12$ at the time of writing, which is reasonable enough for those making low volume purchases with ETH.

So, after we already mingled with the Litecoin’s performance as currency for payments, measured traction of the Lightning Network and explored the habits of our traders, it’s about time to put Ethereum in the spotlight and see the bigger picture of what makes it one of the most preferred cryptocurrencies for payments.

Learn all about ETH payments by exploring the infographic below, or continue reading for a more in-depth explanation.

No, crypto merchants don’t immediately settle to fiat

Once again, we are debunking a myth that crypto-friendly merchants prefer settling their earnings to fiat. It appears that, from all the incoming Ether payments, 33.2% are converted to Euros and just 3.4% to U.S. Dollars, which sums up to a total of 36.6%.

What is interesting is that 43.6% of all Ether ends up converted to none other than Bitcoin. However, by now, this does not surprise us as we have noticed the same trend when analyzing data of other cryptocurrencies. For example, only 27% of all Litecoin payments are cashed out in fiat currencies, which is even less than Ether. 

The rest of Ether earnings (19.8%) are not converted to anything, meaning that approximately one in five merchants prefers payouts in Ether more than in any other currency. 

What influences the overall amount of payments?

Since 2019 began, we have processed 14,153 ETH payments in total. Starting in March, the overall payment count has been climbing up at a steady pace, reaching the most fruitful month July when we processed 1,974 payments in ETH. 

The most likely reason behind it is that, at the same time, the price of ETH had reached a high point and got over $300 for the first time in a year. The same conclusions can be drawn by looking at the performance in August. As ETH price began dropping, so did the spending power, returning the order count to the same numbers we had in March.

Despite that, Ether remains the second most popular cryptocurrency for payments on CoinGate, accounting for 5.53% of all. 

How big are those Ether payments?

But what about the size of those payments? At the moment of writing, the average cart size is 0.83 ETH or approximately $146 worth of Ether. However, over eight months, the average cart size fluctuates quite a lot. 

For example, we’ve spotted that the biggest average cart size when paying with Ether was in April, topping $238, whereas the lowest was in August with an average cart size of $91, which is less than any other month this year. 

Speaking of highs and lows, the lowest payment that our merchant receive was as little as 0.000363 ETH when the price of Ether was $275. The largest payment of 357.14 ETH was made earlier this year in January when Ether price sat at $112.

The power of marketing

If we check the overall volume of Ether payments, we can see that some vendors process way more than others. For example, currently, our three top merchants account for 14.3% of all Ether payments collected via CoinGate. 

There is a real reason why our top merchants get more traction when it comes to cryptocurrency payments – all of them don’t hesitate to let their customers know about it. 

There are plenty of ways it can be done, and we talk about it in detail on our blog about how to promote your business to crypto-friendly shoppers. Take a few minutes to get familiar with simple marketing strategies that might help your business attract customers that are keen on spending digital assets. 

Do you enjoy delving into stats like this?

We do enjoy exploring what is happening under the hood of our cryptocurrency payment machine, especially when we notice positive growth and perhaps an exciting trend. 

If you too enjoy it as much as we do, consider subscribing to our blog. We are bound to do more data analysis in the future, and by entering your email down below, you will never miss one. 

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