A look for conducted by giant accounting firm Deloitte indicates that nearly 85% of executives from various US retail organizations expect cryptocurrency payments to become “ubiquitous” in their respective industries over the next five years.

The multinational professional services firm, in conjunction with PayPal, surveyed 2,000 senior executives from U.S. retail organizations in industries including cosmetics, digital goods, electronics, fashion, food and beverages, home/garden, hospitality, leisure and transport.

While “digital currencies” is a term that encompasses both cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), the survey found that cryptocurrencies are a high priority for organizations.

More than 85% of entrepreneurs surveyed rank the availability of cryptocurrency payments as a high or very high priority, while around 83% do the same with stablecoins.

Nearly 3/4 (75%) of businesses revealed that they plan to accept crypto or stablecoin payments within the next two years.

Among all retailers surveyed, only 1% do not intend to implement digital currency payments within the next two years, while 26% have already done so and 39% plan to do so within 12 years. coming months.

More than half (54%) of large retailers surveyed — with revenues over $500 million — have invested more than $1 million to integrate digital currency infrastructure into their businesses.

Retailers Stick to Crypto Payments

Major retailers, including luxury brand Gucci, French brand Balenciaga and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, have made announcements about accepting cryptocurrency payments over the past month.

On Tuesday, PayPal expanded its crypto offering by allowing users to transfer cryptocurrency to external wallets, fulfilling a long-standing request from the crypto community.

Meanwhile, other major payment processors, including Stripe and Venezuelan payment processor Megasoft, have launched crypto-related pilot programs at their businesses.

The growing popularity of crypto cards, which allow users to spend their cryptocurrency using traditional cards at merchants that accept Visa and Mastercard, has also fueled merchant adoption.

Other accounting firms in the “Big Four” group, to which Deloitte belongs, are also turning to cryptocurrencies. This year, the Canadian subsidiary of the multinational KPMG announced that it had added bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) to its balance sheet.

*Translated by Daniela Pereira do Nascimento with the permission of decrypt.co.