Boston Fed Researchers: Bitcoin still considered too risky

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published a detailed report on bitcoin last September that showed that cryptocurrency was becoming the most cost-effective online payment method. The Boston Fed is the first member of the US central banking system to do an in-depth research on bitcoins.

However, the number of big firms accepting bitcoins seems to be stagnating. Although, e-commerce giants like Dell and Overstock are expanding the said payment option in different countries, there has yet to be a firm of their stature to enter the bitcoin ecosystem in 2015.

"One likely explanation is that saving on transaction costs is only one factor in a merchant's decision whether to adopt bitcoin. We can easily imagine that bitcoin represents a technology that is still considered too risky and that may well deter some merchants from adopting it", said Boston Fed researchers Stephanie Lo and J Christina Wang in a conversation with CoinDesk while explaining the possible reason for decrease in bitcoin use for online payments since the release of original report, 'Bitcoin as Money?'.

They further said that recent trends point out that digital currency faces the main problem of perception and that most of the firms do not see it as a beneficial payment tool.