The biggest food producer and retailer in the Western Balkan region – Konzum – became the first retail chain in Croatia where customers can pay with digital assets. Currently, such transactions are available only in the online store, but the company plans to introduce the service across its supermarkets in the near future.
In addition, the leading tech-focused North American e-retailer – Newegg – announced it will accept Shiba Inu (SHIB) as a form of payment on its platform during the Christmas holidays. Nothing – a London-based consumer technology company – will also allow cryptocurrency settlements for its newest product.
Crypto Invades The Balkan Peninsula
Konzum – Croatia’s largest supermarket chain with more than 10,000 employees – revealed it will enter the cryptocurrency industry by accepting several digital assets as a means of payment. These include Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), Stellar (XLM), Dai (DAI), EOS (EOS), Tether (USDT), and USD Coin (USDC).
To enable such payments, Konzum cooperated with the domestic fintech company Electrocoin and its PayCek system, known as Croatia’s first cryptocurrency payment processor. Given the volatility of most digital tokens, the latter will guarantee the buyer a fixed exchange rate at the start of the transaction and provide enough time for successful execution.
Uroš Kalinić – Member of the Management Board of Konzum for Finance and IT – noted that Konzum is constantly monitoring global trends hinting that the cryptocurrency industry is one of them.
“As the largest retail chain in Croatia, which in its almost 65-year history is a continuous leader in the domestic market in terms of business results and technological achievements, we are proud to be leaders in another area that is rapidly developing and dictating the future,” he summarized.
Konzum is not only the leading supermarket chain in Croatia but also the biggest in the Western Balkan area. Apart from its homeland, it stretches to two other countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. The retail giant serves over 650,000 customers each day in its more than 700 stores, as the cryptocurrency option will be available in some of them in the upcoming months.
Newegg And Nothing Follow The Trend
Another major e-commerce company that embraced additional digital asset settlements recently is Newegg. The California-based firm, which accepted bitcoin as a payment method in 2014, now added the popular meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) to its list of supported digital assets. Interestingly, it made the news official by displaying it on The Reef – North America’s largest DOOH billboard located in downtown Los Angeles.
Earlier this year, Newegg was one of the first firms globally to accept SHIB’s biggest rival – Dogecoin (DOGE). Later on, it also added Litecoin (LTC).
Andrew Choi – Director of Brand Marketing at the company – admitted that customers are highly interested in cryptocurrencies. Giving them options to use bitcoin and the alternative coins as a payment method provides “greater flexibility.”
Subsequently, Nothing – a technology company founded by Carl Pei (OnePlus’s Co-Founder) – dived in the cryptocurrency bandwagon by accepting digital asset payments for its Nothing ear (1) black edition wireless earbuds. Those coins are Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), and Dogecoin (DOGE).
The payment option is available in Nothing’s online stores in the following countries: the UK, the USA, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Japan.
