6 Reasons Why UK Businesses Should Take Monero Payments
Should your UK business accept XMR payments?
None of this information is presented as Financial Advice and is merely set forth as a means to help further your education on these important matters.
Adopting Monero (XMR), the world’s leading privacy-orientated cryptocurrency, into your UK business is a pursuit worth investigating.
Well done for taking the time to explore this important subject.
First off, it is 100% legal for you to accept cryptocurrency payments for goods or services in the UK:
“HMRC does not consider cryptoassets to be currency or money... On its own, owning and using cryptoassets is not illegal in the UK and does not imply tax evasion or any other illegal activities.”
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/cryptoassets-manual/crypto10100
With that being said, Monero has several advantages over Great British Pounds (£), or any other fiat currency for that matter ($,€, etc.), that it is worth considering incorporating into your business.
Monero Business Advantages:
Inflation Resistant
Financial Collapse Resistant
Censorship Resistant
Third-Party Fee Resistant
GDPR Compliant
Business Indexing
1. Inflation Resistant
Inflation is the practice of private banks (who seek to make profits for their private interests) issuing or circulating more money into the economy through loans.
This is done with government approval in which currency is made out of thin air, yes, literally out of nothing with interest being added to a product (Pound currency) that took no effort to create.
This practice is by all means government-approved counterfeiting and sadly has been a reality since the formation of the Bank of England by William of Orange in 1694.
Positive Money has an excellent overview of how the British Banking system creates money out of nothing:
The result of inflation is that the currency in your bank account becomes less valuable as more of it exists in the economy.
The purchasing power of your GBP (£) in the future will not have the same spending power as it had in the past, even if the current economic conditions and opportunities remain completely unchanged.
You are therefore losing money by simply holding GBP (£) over an extended period of time. Effectively, GBP (£) is a money sack with holes in it or a clay pot that slowly leaks.
For those who understand this process, they are perpetually motivated to invest or spend their hard-earned money to offset inflation.
Monero Is Inflation Resistant
Monero, in, contrast is not dependent on any private or centralised entities or interests, it is completely decentralised with individuals all over the world pooling their resources to verify transaction within the XMR ecosystem (mining).
Monero can’t be created without restraint at the will of centralised private interests, nor can a government decree the creation of it.
Monero has a fixed and recordable inflation rate.
0.6 XMR is added to the Monero Economy every time a Block (group of transactions) is processed and awarded to miners who verify transactions. This happens on average every 2 minutes, meaning that the inflation rate is continuously decreasing forever as the supply increases.
It is also worth pointing out that the inflation rate would be even lower than 0.6 XMR per Block due to individuals losing access to their wallets either through death or negligence. Funds lost this way are indefinitely inactive within the Monero Economy being practically deleted as there is no means of acquiring and then trading them.
It’s important to remember that Monero has a set emission or inflation rate but no maximum supply.
Monero is therefore a formidable option for long-term storage of value, Monero is inflation-resistant.
2. Financial Collapse Resistant
The global economic recession of 2008 was a banking scandal. Private banks were forgiven their debts by government bailouts whereas you or I would have been, no doubt, thrown in prison should we have committed similar crimes.
It is no coincidence then that the white paper for Bitcoin was released in 2008 with a new economic system based on decentralisation being sought after. You will notice that the focus of the white paper is for Bitcoin to be digital, decentralised cash. It sadly has not lived up to this original aspiration, but that’s a topic for another article.
In the present, UK businesses face mounting global economic uncertainties after the wake of Covid-19, not withstanding the current wars and rumours of wars that provide added pressure points to centralised economic systems. The shortcomings of the current economic paradigm based on centralised private banks is further evidenced by the mounting cost increases experienced by business owners and customers from all over the world. This is no doubt to continue as more currency is injected into the economy to keep things afloat.
Monero, in contrast and as mentioned before, is not subject to “on demand” money issuing to temporarily fix national economic tensions. Monero is not dependent on a single nation’s economy such as the USD or Pound. All of this is to say, should another economic collapse crash the Pound, your Monero will still largely hold its original value within a services/goods to Monero and goods/services to Monero transaction economy.
Even without financial collapse; cyberattacks, banking and network problems can affect credit and debit card systems, and there are frequent warnings they could get worse. Monero has decentralized self-regulating transaction accounting, so as long as there is internet and some miners to verify and authenticate transactions it will keep working!
3. Censorship Resistant
There are many controversial subjects and people in the world.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with movements or people such as Julian Assange (WikiLeaks), Andrew Torba (Gab), The Canadian Trucker Freedom Convoy or Nigel Farage, we should all be able to spot the intrinsic danger of governments or private institutions having the power to debank individuals at their command.
All the aforementioned have experienced debanking with many of them having to rely on decentralised cryptocurrency to stay afloat.
“If it can happen to them, it can happen to me” should ring in our ears.
Even if you happen to be in agreement with certain measures that warrant debanking, that does not mean that moral sentiments could change and the exact same powers could be leveraged against you in the future.
We should likewise recognise that not even the most heinous convicted criminals are permanently denied their access to banking services.
With Monero, you are your own bank, you have complete control and access of your funds without any outside body being able to limit your ability to transact. Due to Monero’s focus on privacy, your transactions cannot be traced or blocked either.
Monero is digital cash; Monero is censorship-resistant.
4. Third-Party Fee Resistant
Monero has no other associated banking fees.
At the time of writing this, it costs ~£0.004 in a transaction fee to move £1000 of XMR. This is at the lowest transaction priority (slowest) which is perfect for nonurgent payments, however even at the highest priority (fastest) the transaction fee totals ~£0.84
Compare this to PayPal where the transaction fee to move the same amount costs £49.30 to an international client or vendor! That’s a 5769.047% difference!
Wise.com is much better with a £8.80 fee for shifting £1000 to the US via their “Fast and easy” transfer type. Nevertheless, Monero remains the victor in the transfer fee wars and should be a no-brainer for larger international transfers among the business-savvy.
5. GDPR Compliant
Under UK law companies have a legal obligation to treat customer data confidentially. Monero does this automatically via Stealth Addresses, Ring Signatures, and RingCT.
Other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum have a completely open and tracible transaction history which means it’s much more difficult for your clients to transact in a way that does not undermine their privacy.
For Bitcoin, Extra steps such as Whirlpools or Stonewall protocols need to be taken to prevent customer transaction information being linked to your products or being visible to your competitors.
6. Business Indexing
The Monero online community is vibrant and growing. There are plenty of people who are more than willing to answer questions and point you in the right direction. In fact, the Monero Subreddit has over 297K users and is ranked in the top 1% of all groups on the site.
This community cooperation also extends to business opportunities. Many Monero users actively seek businesses who specifically exchange goods or services for XMR.
Accepting Monero payments therefore presents a powerful marketing opportunity to organically get your brand, product or service in front of a large audience seeking to spend their hard-earned digital cash.
Your website can likewise be indexed on many of the Monero business directories providing crucial backlinks that could improve your rank in SEO while also bringing organic traffic and leads to your site.
Monero Directories
Cryptwork - https://cryptwerk.com/pay-with/xmr/
XMR Directory - https://www.monerodirectory.com/
Kycnot.me - https://kycnot.me/?type=service
We are also in the process of compiling a UK specific directory.
If you would like assistance in setting up systems to receiving Monero payments for your business please get in touch by commenting on this article or emailing me at info@moneromaster.com
I would be more than happy to jump on a video call and answer any of your questions!
Appendix
Monero Stats - CoinMarketCap (Monero)
Further Reading - Mastering Monero