The count of merchants who officially accept Bitcoin (BTC) payments globally experienced a significant increase of nearly threefold in 2023, as reported by data sourced from the BTC Map, a provider of Bitcoin merchant location information.
According to the most recent information from BTC Map, the total number of restaurants, bars, shops, and services that welcomed digital asset payments reached 6,126 by the end of 2023. This marked a substantial rise from the 2,207 merchants recorded at the beginning of that year.
It’s worth noting that this uptick was slightly lower than the peak seen in late September, when there were 6,590 Bitcoin-accepting merchants. BTC Map relies on open-source mapping data from OpenStreetMap, allowing both businesses and users to designate places where Bitcoin can be used for transactions. This means that the increase may also be attributed to a growing number of users actively adding businesses to the database.
The map displayed a higher concentration of merchants accepting BTC in Central and South America, while fewer such businesses were found in Africa and Asia. The United States and Europe also demonstrated higher counts of cryptocurrency-accepting merchants. In Southeast Asia, the Philippines boasted the highest number of these merchants, while there were virtually none to be found in China, India, and Russia, as indicated on the map.
In a November report by Cointelegraph, it was highlighted that many merchants who accept cryptocurrency tend to exchange them back into traditional markets after receiving them.
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