On 22 May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecs made the first ever real world transaction with Bitcoin, buying two pizzas in Jacksonville, Florida for 10,000 BTC. Today, 10,000 BTC is worth $72,180,800 - now that’s some pricey pizza. Since then, the cryptocurrency community has grown in leaps and bounds and paying with crypto is more accessible than ever.

We’ll be taking a look at how many merchants accept cryptocurrency payments, including how to pay using Bitcoin, how to pay with Litecoin, how to pay with Ethereum, Dash and Bitcoin Cash. It’s time to

Top cryptocurrencies accepted by merchants worldwide

Dash (DASH)

Coming in at number 5, Dash makes it onto the list of the top cryptocurrencies accepted worldwide. Dash, originally known as Darkcoin and XCoin, is a privacy coin that keeps things totally private for its users. Evan Duffield, the creator of Dash, decided to found his own coin after seeing the shortfalls created by Bitcoin and Litecoin. Dash is a hard fork of Litecoin (LTC), and has faster transaction feeds and more privacy than LTC. You can pay with Dash at 124 verified companies. The actual number is probably a lot higher, but for the sake of this article we’ll just be looking at verified merchants.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a fork of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash was founded on 1 August 2017, as a response to rising Bitcoin network fees. Since its inception, Bitcoin had maintained a common set of rules for the coin, however certain community members were unhappy with how the blockchain was developing, and they decided to split, resulting in Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash is currently the 5th largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and is available to trade on most trading platforms, like eToro, and exchanges. You can pay with Bitcoin Cash at 199 verified merchants.

Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin was launched in 2011, as a fork of Bitcoin. Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin (LTC), aimed to combat some of the shortcomings facing Bitcoin, including faster transaction speeds and block propagation (one block in 2.5 minutes instead of 10 minutes as on the Bitcoin blockchain), and a larger total supply (84 million LTC to 21 million BTC). What to know how to pay with Litecoin? It’s easily available, with 205 verified merchants accepting LTC as a form of payment.

Ethereum (ETH)

It probably comes as no surprise that Ethereum sits at the second position on this list. Ethereum is the second largest coin by market cap, sitting only behind Bitcoin. Founded in 2015, Ethereum brought smart contracts to the cryptocurrency space. Since then, Ethereum has gone on to become one of the most successful coins on the market. With the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade coming up sometime in 2020, Ethereum will be faster, more secure and more scalable, making it even more ideal for transactions. You can pay with ETH at 272 verified merchants.

Bitcoin

Obviously Bitcoin sits at number one on this list. Bitcoin is arguably the most mainstream of all of these coins, and sits with the largest market cap by far. Paying with crypto is more accessible than ever, by and large because of the existence of Bitcoin. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, and remains the most popular one. Websites like Wikipedia, Microsoft, Overstock, and Shopify are amongst those companies and retailers that accept Bitcoin payments. Bitcoin is considered legal in the USA, Malta, Nigeria, Japan, and dozens of other countries around the world. As of now, you can pay with Bitcoin directly at 453 verified merchants. However, there are also crypto cards like BitPay, Bitcoin payments are super simple.

Want to get your hands on some BTC? You can buy directly from eToro, or trade the cryptocurrency - and all the others on the list - and make some money by accurately predicting the market movements. That’s right, you can make money even if the cryptocurrency’s value is down. Get those Bitcoin payments rolling.

Accessibility

As mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency grows, so will the number of merchants accepting crypto payments. Already, paying with crypto is more accessible than ever and that’s unlikely to stop any time soon. As we move forward, more and more countries will likely begin to see the promise of cryptocurrency and how the technology can help us transition into a digital world. This industry is on the up, more and more merchants accept cryptocurrency payments than ever before, and it’s pretty clear that the bitcoin payments and cryptocurrency payments market will continue to grow.