A tweet posted on Friday about Kroger Co. dropping VISA credit card payments at one of its supermarket chains sparked a series of events that has opened the door to the possibility of future crypto acceptance.

Kroger Drops VISA Over Mounting Fees

Kroger Co., one of the world’s largest food retailers, announced on Friday that it would no longer be accepting VISA credit card payments at its Smith’s Food & Drug Stores locations effective April 3, 2019. The decision, which the company says is due to the “excessive interchange and network fees that Visa and its issuing banks charge retailers” will impact all 250 Smith’s supermarkets and fuel centers.

Kroger’s CFO and executive vice-president, Mike Schlotman, explained:

At Smith’s, Visa’s credit card fees are higher than any other credit card brand that we accept. […] They conceal from customers what Visa and its banks charge retailers to accept Visa credit cards. At Smith’s, Visa’s credit card fees are higher than any other credit card brand that we accept. Visa’s excessive fees and unfairness cannot continue to go unchecked. That’s why, starting April 3, Smith’s will accept all forms of payment except Visa credit cards.

The ban affects all Smith’s locations, which are spread throughout Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Arizona. A spokesperson for Kroger noted that the ban will not impact debit and prepaid cards issued by Visa-affiliated banks.

This is the second time Kroger has dropped VISA at one of its chains. In late July of last year, the company announced that its Foods Co. stores would no longer accept VISA credit card payments at any of its 21 locations throughout California.

#CryptoTwitter – and Crypto – to the Rescue!

Now here’s where things get interesting. Several hours after Kroger had made the initial announcement, Morgan Creek Digital Assets Co-Founder Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano posted a tweet about the ban, asking if anyone knew someone on Kroger’s leadership team.

Grocery store @kroger is stopping acceptance of @Visa in over 250 stores because of network fees. Who knows someone on the leadership team there? The Morgan Creek Digital team will fly to meet them and get them hooked up with the Lightning Network nationwide. 🔥🙏🏽 — Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) March 2, 2019

Apparently, somebody did know someone at Kroger because, just a few hours later, Pompliano tweeted an encouraging update:

Just got connected with the Kroger Digital product team. Twitter is amazing 🙏🏽 https://t.co/fEqJbntZ2h — Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) March 2, 2019

He hinted at a fairly positive reception upon reaching out to the company:

There are a few crypto enthusiasts who work at Kroger it looks like and they would love to see us all be successful with some sort of implementation. Stay tuned

And things continue to look up, as you can see in Pompliano’s latest tweet on the matter:

Just finished up first call with someone on Kroger Digital team. World-class, forward thinking crew. Looks like things are progressing. Stay tuned 🙏🏽 — Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) March 3, 2019

Not With a Bang, But With a Whisper…

That is how large scale, real-world cryptocurrency acceptance will happen. No amount of soapbox-shouting, drum-beating crypto advocacy in the world can convince a business to accept cryptocurrency if they can’t see for themselves how it will benefit them.

What will work, and Kroger is illustrating this perfectly, is when a business takes a look at its bottom line and realizes that traditional means of sending and receiving payments are hurting it financially. Once that happens, it opens the door for a quiet voice of reason to say “there is a better way…”

I do want to stress that Kroger accepting cryptocurrency payments is in no way a sure thing – or even an official proposal under consideration.

Yet.

What is important is that the company seems open to at least discussing it as an option. I wish Anthony Pompliano and Morgan Creek Digital the best of luck in their talks with Kroger Co. and will definitely be following the situation as events continue to unfold.

Do you think that Kroger will find a way to integrate cryptocurrencies as a means of payment? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of DepositPhotos