Pet Playgrounds is the first online retailer of DIY non-electric dog fence kits to embrace bitcoin, accepting payments in the digital currency here in the U.S. and now in Canada. Anyone in the US or Canada can now use the digital currency to purchase a DIY dog fence kit. An option that was never available before today. Many questions hover over the future of bitcoin, a new type of money overseen by software running on across a vast network of machines. It’s still unclear how the governments of the world will regulate use of the currency. But it continues to evolve, and Pet Playgrounds has decided to jump in. Pet Playgrounds has partnered with BitPay to collect and convert all funds directly into US dollars at the time of purchase.  Accepting credit card payments is rather expensive, due to steep fees from third-party processors. Pet Playgrounds still pays BitPay to handle these transactions, but these fees are significantly lower even without accepting bitcoins directly. 

So why has Pet Playgrounds decided to accept bitcoin? The potential to harness the technology that lies at the heart of the Bitcoin system, a public ledger called a block chain, is a totally new way of thinking about transactions. It keeps records that are decentralized and keeps users semi-anonymous while making their transactions public. Of course the technology aspect is only part of it. From a financial perspective Bitcoin can reduce credit card processing fees to less than 1 percent, which is much less than the standard 2-5% that is typically charged. Also, because people can pay businesses in Bitcoin without divulging personally identifiable information (names, billing addresses, etc.), they enjoy a level of identity-theft protection that credit cards simply can’t offer. 

Whether or not bitcoin will last forever is irrelevant. The fact that small businesses like Pet Playgrounds are adopting the technology means more people will utilize the technology, and for now that is all that matters.