Over the past years, Nimiq has realised several merchant-onboarding programs in different markets, among them Costa Rica, Germany, and also Africa. These test-runs provided us with valuable insights into the realities of integrating crypto payment solutions at the level of both cities and also individual merchants.
The key takeaway from these experiences, across all continents, was that directly supporting single merchants in accepting crypto or fiat settlements is not a scalable path to driving adoption. The process is extremely resource-intensive, and even with close guidance and ongoing consultation, the rate of unsuccessful implementations and merchant deboardings remained very/too high.
For that reason, we have strategically moved away from onboarding and supporting individual merchants. Today, it is possible to find suitable payment partners through a simple online search, and going forward we will especially highlight and promote the partners Nimiq works with, so that interested merchants can connect with them directly. However, one-to-one merchant support has proven not to be a viable strategy for Nimiq, and is therefore not part of our adoption approach anymore.