The latest company to begin accepting Bitcoin as a payment, is a Ukrainian shipping company Varamar Ltd., with suggestions that other companies will be following suit. They are currently in negotiations with clients regarding the first Bitcoin payment; however, the founder, Alexander Varvarenko believes that this will bring a lot of advantages to the company. He said;“Paperwork for transactions is a complicated issue with banks, and Bitcoin payments will help solve that by being faster. It could also help solve payment problems in countries like Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, Yemen and Qatar, which have safe companies but are victims of sanctions being imposed against their governments.” This is big news for Bitcoin, and it could be a sign of what is to come. This company is the first of hopefully many shipping firms that will start accepting Bitcoin as payment. Some are not as keen as others though; Ivan Vikoulov, who is a managing director of a Gibraltar-based grain trader, voiced his concerns regarding accepting Bitcoin, saying; “We still have to do our homework on this as it’s a new way of payments. The industry has been under stress as majority of vessels are registered offshore and many vessel owners have banks in the Baltics, where there is a squeeze to send and receive payments in dollars.” If the popularity surrounding cryptocurrencies continues to grow like it is, there is absolutely no doubt that it will start to become a staple of international trade. It brings many benefits, such as reduced paperwork and quicker transactions . It is likely that it will take a long time for this to truly take over the international commodity trading and the number of crypto payments will remain a very small percentage; however, as the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies grow, and the acceptance in everyday trading improves, it is likely that this number will be become a lot higher.