Over 7,500 Canadian retailers get access to crypto payments

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The evolution of digital currency as a legitimate form of payment continues. After a successful rollout to Whole Foods grocery stores and other retailers in the U.S., Flexa is introducing its crypto payments platform to Canadian merchants. More than 7,500 retailers in the country will soon be able to allow shoppers to pay directly with their crypto assets.

According to a blog post from a few days ago, the payments platform is going to be available to “residents of the Great White North—from Yukon to Nova Scotia and from Vancouver to St. John’s.” The platform will be launched in two stages, first with the introduction of the Flexa network to residents in Canada and then with the platform’s integration with merchants “including some of the nation’s largest retail, entertainment, and fuel brands” by the first week of next month.

The company adds, “Flexa’s Canadian customers can spend freely on the network when they visit the United States—starting today. And similarly, when our Canadian merchant partners go live north of the border, U.S. residents will be able to spend their cryptocurrency in Canada without having to worry about foreign exchange rates or conversion fees. Flexa wallet deposits will continue to be securely custodied and fully insured through our partnership with Gemini, which makes SPEDN one of the easiest and safest ways to use your cryptocurrency wherever you go.”

The ability to provide Flexa in Canada is going to be delivered through a partnership with CoinSquare, a Canadian crypto exchange based in Toronto. That relationship is also going to facilitate Flexa’s ability to introduce on a wider scale, its Flexacoin collateralization, as well as a crypto wallet SDK (software development kit) for both Android and iOS devices.

Flexa adds in its announcement, “Launching Flexa to customers outside of the United States—and in turn, bringing affordable, secure, and fraud-free payments to even more people—brings us one step closer to fulfilling our ambition of making cryptocurrency spendable everywhere, and rebuilding payment acceptance for the modern era.”

In the U.S., Flexa is partnered with the Gemini exchange to allow retailers across the country to accept digital currency payments. Among the retailers set up in the network, in addition to Whole Foods, are Starbucks, Nordstrom, Crate and Barrel, Baskin Robbins, Regal Cinemas and more. Payments are available to be made in Bitcoin Core (BTC), Ether, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin and Gemini.