Which cryptocurrencies are actually accepted in shops?

Everything written about crypto payments uses the plural. Directories list eight or ten currencies, articles talk about "crypto payments", and you naturally conclude that an equipped business takes more or less anything.

The count says otherwise. Here is how many of the directory's 29,137 businesses accept each currency.

What this table says

Two currencies cover almost everything. Bitcoin and the Lightning Network dominate so heavily that filtering on them barely reduces the results. That is not an accident: Lightning is not a rival currency to bitcoin, it is a way of moving it — and most equipped businesses take both, with a marked preference for the second because it is instant.

The best-known names to the general public are absent. Ethereum, Tether, Solana, Litecoin: familiar names, heavily traded, sitting in a great many wallets. Not one business in the catalogue accepts them. A currency's market capitalisation and its use at a till simply have no relationship.

The rest fits into a few dozen addresses. Monero and Bitcoin Cash exist, very marginally, across a handful of countries. Enough to warrant a page each; not enough to plan a day around.

Why the gap

Three reasons compound, and none of them are ideological.

Equipment follows a single supply chain. Terminals and payment apps aimed at businesses are overwhelmingly built around Bitcoin and Lightning. A shopkeeper getting equipped does not pick currencies à la carte: they install what exists.

Paying demands properties few currencies offer. The transaction has to confirm in seconds, for negligible fees, without holding up a queue. Lightning was designed for exactly that. General-purpose chains have other strengths, and a shop's till is not their ground.

What people hold is not what they spend. Many holders of other currencies convert first, or use a card backed by their account, rather than hunting for a business that takes their asset directly. Which, from the business's point of view, changes nothing: they see a card.

What it means in practice

If you hold bitcoin, you are served anywhere the directory lists something. Just check the listing mentions Lightning if that is all your wallet does — the two are shown separately, and a business showing only "Bitcoin" will make you wait for an on-chain confirmation.

If you hold anything else, two routes. The currency filter on the map will show you the rare businesses that take it, and save you finding out at the counter. Or you convert before going out, which is what the vast majority do.

If you are a business getting equipped, this table is an argument for starting with Lightning and not bothering with the rest. The merchant guide covers what setup actually involves.

An honest caveat

This table measures what is recorded in OpenStreetMap, not what is genuinely accepted at the counter. A shopkeeper who takes Monero without anyone having noted it does not appear here — and the reverse holds too. On the very small currencies, where a few addresses change the picture, that caveat weighs more than it does on bitcoin.

Which is precisely why confirmations matter: if you pay in a currency that was not listed, say so on the listing. The full method explains where the data comes from and what it does not guarantee.

Going further

The guide to where to spend bitcoin starts from the beginning — who accepts it, where, and how it goes. And if the difference between bitcoin and Lightning is still hazy, the guide to paying explains it without the jargon: it is the single most useful distinction in the whole subject.