Marco Ciocca, the co-founder and chairman of the Montessori preschools in Flatiron and Soho in New York, officially integrated bitcoin to allow parents to pay the tuition fee of students in bitcoin.
In an interview with BBC, Ciocca revealed that the organization decided to integrate bitcoin after discovering an increase in demand and inquiries from parents in the region toward bitcoin. In consideration of the implementation of bitcoin by prestigious educational institutions in London and Greece, Ciocca and the two Montessori preschools in New York decided to offer bitcoin as a payment option for parents.
According to Ciocca, 10 parents of roughly 300 students have already started to pay in bitcoin and expects the number to increase significantly in the upcoming years.
"If we talk about just the sort of transactional ease... I think this form of payment will continue to grow," Ciocca said.
Throughout this month, the global bitcoin industry has seen an explosive growth in the number of merchants adopting the cryptocurrency as digital currency and a mean of payment. On June 29, Russian publications revealed that Valenok, a fine dining restaurant that is a part of the Novikov group, which operates more than 50 restaurants, have decided to accept bitcoin in Moscow.
Mikhail Petukhov, spokesman for the restaurant, told RIA Novosti:
"We want to keep pace with the time. If there is a demand from guests for payment with bitcoin, we will even install special ATMs to exchange bitcoins for providing the proper level of service to our guests. The restaurant generates a QR code containing the desired amount and address of his purse. Then, the client scans this QR code using his bitcoin application on a smartphone and makes payment."
Despite the supposed high transaction fee of bitcoin, an increasing number of companies and merchants are beginning to accept bitcoin due to its decentralized nature that eliminates the necessity for intermediaries and mediators when processing transactions.
More importantly, as Ciocca emphasized, users have started to utilize bitcoin mostly because of its simple process of settling transactions. At most schools and educational institutions, parents are requested to either visit a physical location to settle the tuition in cash or via bank transfer. With bitcoin, it is as easy as using a mobile phone to send a single transaction to a single bitcoin address.
Recently, as Bitconnect also reported, the bitcoin mempool, the holding area for all transactions waiting to be picked up and confirmed by bitcoin miners, significantly decreased by around 90 percent. Such large decline in the size of the mempool led to a decrease in bitcoin fees.
Charlie Shrem, bitcoin pioneer and the COO at cryptocurrency wallet platform operator Jaxx, revealed that he was able to settle a $2,000 transaction with a $0.25 fee, which was confirmed within 6 minutes.
Parents of students at the two Montessori preschools will be able to transact large sums of money with relatively lower fees as Shrem did, which is substantially cheaper in comparison to bank transfer fees that could cost upwards to $50.