A famous Parisian shopping center will accept payments in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, from June 8. To spend their digital assets, the French will first have to buy a gift card through an application.
Beaugrenelle, the shopping center located in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, will accept payments in cryptocurrencies. The brand, which has 115 stores, will accept digital currencies from Wednesday, June 8, 2022. The mall will accept a total of 21 cryptocurrencies, including the must-haves Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH)until July 8, 2022. This is a first in France.
As part of this project, Beaugrenelle has entered into a partnership with Lyzi, a French start-up specializing in payment applications. To pay for their purchases in cryptocurrency, customers will first have to install the Lyzi app on their smartphone.
Indirect cryptocurrency payments
With their cryptocurrencies, they will buy a gift card. This card will then allow them to pay for their purchases in the shopping centre. “The center will thus offer its customers the opportunity to use their cryptocurrencies to pay for their gift card, which can be used in all the shops and restaurants of the Magnetic and Panoramic buildings on rue Linois in the 15th arrondissement of the capital”, says Beaugrenelle in a press release. To encourage investors to spend their crypto-assets in its stores, Beaugrenelle is committed to offering a 10% bonus to its customers when creating the gift card.
Merchants will simply have to scan the QR Code provided by the Lyzi app” to validate the transaction and be paid in euros», Explains the start-up on its website. Traders therefore do not exchange their goods for cryptocurrencies. Finally, it is a very indirect way of accepting cryptocurrency payments.
Launched in 2021, Lyzi relies on Zebitex, the French cryptocurrency exchange platform, to manage the purchase of assets. The start-up Lyzi is not registered as a service provider on digital assets (PSAN) with the financial markets authority (AMF). It cannot therefore offer services for the purchase of cryptocurrencies. For its part, Zebitex has had a PSAN license since last year, which allows it to operate legally.
This communication operation could participate in the democratization of cryptocurrencies among the French. Moreover, Lyzi specifies that its employees will be present at the mall to accompany interested customers for a month. As a reminder, 8% of French people have already acquired cryptocurrencies, according to an Adan / KPMG France study. 30% of the population also say they are ready to take the plunge.
The announcement comes weeks after the cryptocurrency market contracted sharply. Following the crash of UST, Terra’s stablecoin, the entire ecosystem turned red.
Despite the volatility of cryptocurrencies, more and more brands in the world start accepting payments in digital currencies. In recent months, well-known retailers, such as Novelship, Southeast Asia’s largest online sneaker seller, Grupo Elektra, a major Mexican retailer and Konzum, the largest supermarket chain in Croatia, added cryptocurrency payments. Last year, the social network Twitter also decided to accept payments in bitcoins.
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