Issues like price volatility pokey transaction times and sheer reputational risk have left many processors and independent sales organizations on the sidelines when it comes to cryptocurrency acceptance Many but not all The latest entrant and the largest so far in this nascent market is Payroc LLC which later this year will roll out a commercial program for acceptance of Bitcoin Ether and Bitcoin Cash three of the leading crypto coins But the Tinley Park Ill-based acquirer doesnt plan to stop there Its working with Ethosio PTE a Singapore-based exchange and technology developer that can support multiple coins We want to facilitate as many coins as we can Jared Poulson Payrocs chief integration officer tells Digital Transactions News Right now the crypto program is in a beta phase but Poulson expects it will roll out by the end of September No merchants are signed yet he says but we have a lot of merchant interest Payroc has plenty of prospects already among the more than 30 000 merchants that use the company for credit and debit acceptance All told it processes 8 billion annually in payment volume Poulson Point-of-sale acceptance is going to require efficiencies so a coffee shop will accept crypto knowing the transaction will be fast The program will start out cautiously It will be open only to online merchants and will offer only crypto-to-crypto exchanges which means merchants will receive payment in Bitcoin or one of the other available coins and will have to handle exchanges into dollars on their own Poulson says starting out with e-commerce rather than with physical merchants should mitigate one of Bitcoins biggest issues slow transaction time brought on by network congestion Online merchants dont have to worry about lines forming at the cash register as transactions work their way to confirmation on the blockchain Poulson points out Point of sale will come later he says Thats going to require efficiencies so a coffee shop will accept crypto knowing the transaction will be fast Sticking to crypto-to-crypto will help solve another issue pricing volatility Slow transactions can cause merchants to lose out on value or refund value if the price of Bitcoin versus fiat currencies slips or rises while the transaction is waiting for confirmation Merchants will have to be pretty comfortable accepting crypto Poulson says But while crypto is far from a common currency merchants may be able to use it to attract customers who otherwise wouldnt buy he adds For a small percentage of transactions many merchants would like the buzz Poulson observes Payroc envisions a gateway fee of a nickel per transaction though for users Ethos will layer on an incremental charge based on the current network fee Poulson says The median transaction fee charged by miners to those spending Bitcoin for example has been another volatile factor It rose as high as 14 at the start of the year but has since dwindled to about a dime according to Bitinfochartscom When it comes to both consumers and merchants crypto isnt for everybody a factor Payroc recognizes Poulson notes Consumers are comfortable using Visa and Mastercard he says Until we solve that its just the merchants that have a really good reputation that will benefit from crypto That might begin to happen as more ISOs and merchants adopt cryptocurrency Payroc isnt the first ISO to bring acceptance of these digital coins to merchants Aliant Payment Systems Inc Fort Lauderdale Fla launched Bitcoin acceptance last summer and added Ether and Litecoin in March for example For Payroc crypto helps fill a need We are interested in proliferating payment methods to our merchants says Poulson We thought this has legs