BitCart, the online cryptocurrency discount gift card platform has announced an unprecedented move. The platform known to allow users to buy and sell gift cards for cryptocurrency was until now supporting both Bitcoin and DASH. However, in a recent announcement, the Irish company has divulged its decision to do away with Bitcoin payment option.
BitCart, in its latest press release, states that the company’s decision to end support for Bitcoin payments is influenced by extremely slow transaction confirmation and settlement speeds. As Bitcoin network continues to struggle with scalability issues, the number of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool continue to increase. In such a scenario, BitCart is finding it increasingly impossible to provide 24-hour turnaround to its customers as promised.
The discount gift card platform partnered with DASH in April 2017 and since then, the number of BitCart customers opting DASH payment over Bitcoin have increased. In the release, the company states that some of its customers have made upwards of five orders for gift cards a day, all with DASH. Increasing DASH adoption among BitCart customers combined with the cryptocurrency’s increasing value has made the company prefer DASH over Bitcoin.
The CEO of BitCart, Graham de Barra was quoted explaining the challenges faced by the company due to delayed confirmations. De Barra said,
“From a merchant’s point of view, bitcoin is extremely problematic. The backlog is vast and transactions speeds are terribly slow. I had to wait three entire weeks to fill two customer orders, simply waiting on the bitcoin network to clear. Bitcoin as a method of payment on BitCart is simply not sustainable and it’s a nightmare from a merchant point of view; every twenty or so transactions the platform would stop working and we would have to reintegrate the API.”
BitCart currently allows users to order Amazon gift cards with cryptocurrency. Soon, the platform intends to introduce Hotels.com gift cards as well, offering more options for the cryptocurrency community to spend their digital currency.
It is indeed sad to see BitCart moving away from Bitcoin, but given the issues with the popular digital currency, it may not be the only one taking such a drastic decision. Hopefully, the community takes note of this development and make haste to make Bitcoin great again.
Ref: Media Release | Image: NewsBTC