Crypto payments on e-commerce platforms are booming despite market conditions, with Cardano (ADA) and Binance Coin (BNB) entering the top 10 most spend crypto. According to a report from payment processor Coingate, people spent a lot of their crypto in 2022. 

The report gathered data from 2014 and determined that e-commerce shops have received 2.5 million crypto payments during this period. On average, these online shops see around 312,500 crypto payments per year.

In that sense, 2022 set a new record by recording over three times this figure, as seen in the chart below. Online merchants saw 927,294 payments with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT), Cardano (ADA), and Binance Coin (BNB) during this period. 

Cardano And Other Crypto Take Over Online Payments

This chart shows an upward trend in how people adopt crypto as a preferred payment method. In 2022, the number of crypto transactions increased by 63%, 2.7 times the yearly average in a macroeconomic environment unfavorable for these assets. 

In the coming years, the trend is poised to extend, and with rising prices and benefits, crypto payments will become a more popular alternative to their traditional counterparts. The report claims:

(…) considering the depth of an ongoing bear market, which suggests that hemorrhaging markets do not necessarily discourage people from going on a shopping spree. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, as the merchants’ turnover in 2022 had increased by a staggering 60% compared to a year before when crypto markets peaked (…).

In the current crypto payment landscape, Bitcoin remains king, accounting for around 48% of all processed transactions. This metric declined by 7.6% in 2021 and might see further losses allowing altcoins like Cardano (ADA) to take over the sector. 

The cryptocurrency accounts for 1.1% of total transactions, while Ethereum, Litecoin, and TRON represent over 20% of complete crypto transactions. However, this landscape is susceptible to change in the coming years as more people embrace crypto payments. 

Why Crypto Is A Better Payment Method

In addition, the report noted that the Bitcoin Lightning Network represents 6.2% of transactions paid in Bitcoin. This number grew from 4.53% in 2021, and it is likely to trend to the upside on the back of further innovation and payment capacity. 

The report stated the following on the adoption of the Bitcoin Lightning network:

2022 was great for the Lightning Network as the capacity in BTC has doubled over the year while the node count has increased as well, signaling a speeding-up adoption of its use. Knowing how much effort in development is put into this technology, it’s unlikely to see the adoption rate slowing down anytime soon.

As a final note on the long-term outlook for crypto payments, the payment processor noted a spike in the number of newly registered merchants in 2022. During this period, online merchants embrace crypto payments to reduce costs and offer better privacy features and security. 

As a result, these merchants saw more sales, the report claims. Vaidas Rutkauskas, CEO of IT infrastructure service provide Cherry Servers said the following about the reasons to adopt crypto payments:

We have integrated crypto payments based on our customer needs – most of them prefer paying with crypto,” explains Vaidas, adding that “customers were happy with the innovation, and we were excited about the opportunity to offer our services to an even wider range of customers. Currently, crypto payments take up a large part of our basket, and consistent growth is observed.