How to Accept Cryptocurrencies at a Coworking Space?

With cryptocurrency being increasingly widespread, it’s no wonder that owners of all kinds of businesses are accepting crypto payments. According to Insider Intelligence, more than 30 million adult Americans own crypto. The essence of the matter is simple: more payment options = a larger number of satisfied clients who’ll pay for your product or service.

Of course, the same applies to coworking space owners. Nowadays, when people are on the brink of using crypto’s underlying blockchain tech to conduct elections, there’s no reason to limit your clients’ options. You would only lose potential tenants who already know how to pay with cryptocurrency. So, here’s what you need to do for your business to become crypto-friendly.

 

Crypto Wallets vs. Crypto Payment Gateways

The first thing to do is choose between converting crypto payments into fiat currency (such as the U.S. dollar) or keeping the payments as crypto assets. Depending on your decision, the method of accepting crypto payments will differ. In both cases, we recommend getting acquainted with the standard Cryptocurrency Accounting for Business guidelines, so that your coworking business is compliant with crypto legislation.

 

Converting Crypto Payments

If you’d rather convert the payments to fiat currency, you will need to use a crypto payment gateway. This service most often provides its own digital wallet, in which the payments are stored until you choose to transfer them to your bank account.

This approach is typically easier for coworking space landlords who are not personally interested in cryptocurrencies. Apart from eliminating the time investment necessary to learn about crypto, its value will always remain the same as it was at the moment the transaction took place. This can be very helpful given the frequent price fluctuations of crypto.

The downside is that you will need to pay higher transaction fees (as high as 5%) than if you decided to keep crypto assets (1%). The same applies regardless of whether you’re leasing an exclusively Bitcoin coworking space or accepting other cryptos as well.

Reliable crypto payment gateway providers include Coinbase Commerce, BitPay, and Coinspaid.

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Keeping Crypto Assets

This method is more suited for coworking space owners who possess some knowledge about crypto or are interested in learning about it. If you’re one such landlord with little previous crypto experience, specialized websites such as tradecrypto.com will provide you with ideas on what to do with your assets.

For this payment method, you will need to obtain a digital wallet of your own. While, generally speaking, there are three types of crypto wallets (hosted, self-custody, and hardware wallets), the first type will be the best choice in this case for most landlords. Namely, hosted wallets are easy to set up and you can leave the security measures to a third-party wallet “host”.

Keep in mind that each wallet will only support a limited number of different cryptos. While Bitcoin is the most flexible cryptocurrency out there, being the most popular one, it’s a good idea to choose a hosted wallet that supports a large number of cryptos - the more, the better.

Some of the most reliable crypto wallet platforms are Coinbase, MetaMask, and Exodus.

 

Integrating Crypto Payments

With your payment gateway or wallet in place, the final step is integrating crypto payments into your website’s checkout process.

The easier way to do this is to use a special plugin or app that practically handles the procedure instead of you. After a simple download and installation, you’re good to go. However, not all e-commerce platforms offer support for crypto payment plugins or apps.

The trickier method involves creating custom HTML code that will allow you to integrate open-source API (application programming interface) on your website. The prerequisite is that your crypto platform provides users with API in the first place, which shouldn’t be an issue as most hosted wallets will do this. If abbreviations such as HTML and API seem scary and confusing, you may hire an IT professional to handle HTML coding instead of you.

Reliable e-commerce platforms supporting crypto payments plugins/apps or APIs include Coinbase Commerce, BitPay, and CoinPayments.

After integrating crypto payments on your website, all that’s left is to enjoy additional money flowing in from crypto enthusiasts, who have chosen your coworking space instead of competing spaces that have still failed to introduce a crypto payment method.

The article was written by Irene Pinchuk. After 6+ years in Digital Marketing & Product Management of B2C relationships, I’ve moved onto the B2B world. Now I’m CEO at Scale Final Content, creating remarkable experiences for every business we work with. We Make UX Content That Ranks 🚀 We are a team of industry leading experts with 6+ years of writing experience, accomplishing the latest SEO trends. I’m a crypto enthusiast, NFT lover and marketer. Obsessed about coffee, UX design and UX content. Live in heart of crypto events, Lisbon, full of sun, ocean and music.