International grocery chain Spar pilots Bitcoin payments in Switzerland

Spar, an international grocery chain, began to accept Bitcoin in a Swiss store, potentially opening the way to an adoption of wider crypto in its global retail network.

In its April 17th Linkedin PostDFX Swiss, a company that offers Crypto-to-Cash solutions, announced that Spar’s location in the Swedish city of Zug was officially put on the BTC card-a platform for monitoring businesses around the world that accept Bitcoin (BTC). DFX Swiss has activated this payment system using a new tool called OpenCryptopay.

“This Spar location is among the first supermarkets in Switzerland where you can pay directly at the cashier using Bitcoin (via Lnurl), thanks to our new #opencryptopay solution – an open P2P standard for cryptographic payments in person,” wrote the company.

Customers can pay with BTC via the Lightning networkwhich implies the scanning of a QR code at the checkout. In a LinkedIn post, Rahim Taghizadegan, director of the Bitcoin Association Suisse, shared a video Demonstrates how easy it is to pay with BTC at Spar.

If the Zug pilot is successful, Spar could extend Bitcoin payments across Switzerland – or potentially deploy it worldwide. Which would mark an important step for Adoption of cryptographyGiven the massive Spar imprint of more than 13,900 stores in 48 countries, serving 14.7 million daily buyers and employing 450,000 people worldwide.

By accepting the BTC in its stores, Spar joins a series of other supermarket and retail chains around the world that have successfully experienced or adopted Bitcoin payments.

In the Netherlands, a space from Spar to Arnhem started to accept BTC in 2014 as part of the “BitcoinCity” initiative.

In April 2023, Pick N Pay, one of the largest supermarket chains in South Africa, Make the headlines By deploying BTC payments in the 1,600+ of its stores after a successful pilot program. Customers can pay using the Lightning Network, similar to the implementation of Spar in Zug, buyers spent more than $ 50,000 in BTC per month.

Major American channels like Whole foods And Starbucks have also tried cryptographic payments via third -party applications like Spedn, which convert the crypto into a fiat at the checkout.