Taking Bitcoin Means Big Sales for Stephen Silver Fine Jewelry

April 19, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

There are a lot of people out there for whom bitcoin, and its various cryptocurrency cousins, is nothing more than a way for people to buy drugs. While this is certainly a use, there’s a lot more going on under the surface here, including some real surprises. In fact, one jeweler—Stephen Silver Fine Jewelry—recently sent reports our way noting that taking bitcoin led to some impressive gains in sales.

Stephen Silver Fine Jewelry, based on the reports sent our way, has been accepting bitcoin for its stock since 2014, and company president Jared Silver believes that the acceptance of bitcoin that early on led to sales growth the company describes as “tremendous.” Stephen Silver Fine Jewelry now does about 20 percent of its business in cryptocurrency. Since the average sale at Stephen Silver runs in the high-six-figure range, the end result is some very impressive numbers.

Since the Silvers’ client base is mainly either major figures in technology or in gemstone collecting, accepting bitcoin has allowed them greater access to a larger worldwide market. Additionally, since there are no conversion fees associated with bitcoin, the company notes customers experience automatic savings of up to 1.5 percent.

Stephen Silver, the company’s CEO, noted “…We’ve created revenue that the company would not even enjoy without being able to accept cryptocurrency. The volume of cryptocurrency as a form of settlement far exceeds the volume of dollars processed by credit card. Large sums of money are where we are finding cryptocurrency to be a huge advantage.”

This is perfectly reasonable for a business that trades worldwide. It is perhaps the greatest advantage of cryptocurrency that it’s universally accepted; if something costs two bitcoin in the United States, it costs two bitcoin in Bangladesh. There’s no need to convert from one currency to another; the conversion happens on the other end. The Bangladeshi pays in bitcoin, and the American receiving the bitcoin converts it to US dollars later, or keeps it as bitcoin for later use. It smooths one major rough spot in international trade by using a common, agreed-upon method of exchange.

Cross-border commerce is likely to make cryptocurrency vastly more useful in the months and years to come, but only time will tell if it will be enough to take cryptocurrency thoroughly mainstream.