Equinox Health Club accepts cryptocurrency payments

If you’re a cryptocurrency fan and like to get your heart rate up on the treadmill or bench press and lifting weights, you might want to try Equinox. As a luxury gym in New York, the company recently announced that it will allow cryptographic payments for gym memberships and merchandise.

Equinox is allowing cryptographic payments for memberships

The move is bringing the goals of bitcoin and its digital counterparts closer to being achieved. What many people are likely forgetting is that while Bitcoin and many of its crypto cousins ​​have gained speculative or even hedging status in recent years, many of them were initially designed to serve as payment tools. They were created to sideline checks, credit cards and fiat currencies, but this has been a relatively slow ride given the volatility that continues to drag them down.

It is extremely difficult to understand when Bitcoin and its family of cryptocurrencies will go up or down when it comes to their prices. Many stores and businesses are reluctant to say “yes” when it comes to accepting cryptocurrency payments for this reason, and to some extent, we can’t blame them.

Consider the following scenario: someone walks into a store and buys $50 worth of goods with bitcoin. For one reason or another, the store does not exchange BTC for fiat currency right away, and about 24 hours pass. From there, the price of BTC drops and that $50 becomes $40. The customer keeps everything they bought, but in the end the store lost money. Is this a fair situation? Not everyone thinks so.

That’s what makes companies like Equinox so important. They understand the initial purposes of bitcoin and digital currencies and are trying to turn them into usable tools that everyday people can benefit from.

Equinox is now the first academy in the Big Apple to allow payments in bitcoin and cryptocurrency. The company has been accepting these payments since early May and announced in a statement that it is looking to attract customers who are “physically and digitally” fit.

Getting back to the way things were

To process future payments, the company has partnered with digital currency payment company Bit Pay, known for processing transactions for companies focused on bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and various other digital assets.

Equinox and many other gyms throughout the United States suffered much during the 2020 and 2021 coronavirus pandemic. Apparently, Equinox is in a very strong recovery state, having registered an increase in sales of approximately 122 percent in the first quarter this year. That’s more than double the 60.9% jump it experienced during the same period in 2019. Apparently, everyone is eager to blend in on the yoga mat and get back to normal life.