The main challenge is the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ether. They can lose 10% of their value in a day, but merchants can mitigate this by using a platform like Bitpay.
“We use Bitpay for processing payments and it’s very easy to use,” says De Bonnecaze. “I even recommend my competitors to use it. If a customer sends us one BTC to buy a case of Pétrus, we can decide to transfer automatically 100% [to euros], or we can keep a certain amount in Bitcoin. We could take 95% in normal currency in our bank account and keep 5% in BTC to bet on the crypto market [hope that the price increases].”
Trading in Bitcoin actually helps protect an international business such as BTC Wine against forex fluctuations, because it arrives so quickly and can instantly be converted to euros via BitPay.
A few other merchants have followed suit and started to accept BTC, and De Bonnecaze welcomes as much competition as possible in this space. “If we have a lot of competitors it will help the market grow bigger. We would like Bitcoin to be a money, and if it is to be a money, it needs to be exchanged, which is why I am welcoming other people to do the same, even our competitors. We need all the actors in our business and other businesses to use it. We need mass adoption.
“I fully recommend it, because it will bring new customers to you. Some people are a little bit scared, because they have heard about it being money from money laundering, terrorism, the dark web and stuff like that, but I explain that the dark web was not waiting for Bitcoin to be effective, and there are a lot of money laundering transactions with dollars and other currencies, so it’s not new.”
Lasserre & Papillon is one of the younger negociants in Bordeaux, so it is happy to take risks, push boundaries and blaze trails. It hopes to see companies within the trade exploring crypto.
“We would like to pay our suppliers in Bitcoin, but we will have to wait a little bit to pay Cheval Blanc or Margaux with Bitcoin,” says De Bonnecaze.
