Gucci to start accepting crypto payments in some US stores – The Peninsula

Gucci to start accepting crypto payments in some US stores – The Peninsula

Gucci will accept payments in cryptocurrencies in the U.S. starting this month, as the luxury industry takes tentative steps into the digital-asset universe.

Customers in some stores in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta and Las Vegas will be able to pay using digital tokens from the end of May, the Italian fashion house said in a statement. It will adopt this payment option throughout its North American stores this summer.

Gucci, owned by Kering SA, will initially accept 10 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.

The company joins fashion designer Philipp Plein, whose online store started accepting crypto payments in 2021. Plein said in an interview in late April that he expects purchases made with digital tokens to surge this year, and that accepting cryptocurrencies had gained his company "a lot of new clients” in the crypto community.

Kering Chief Executive Officer Francois-Henri Pinault in February said Gucci and other fashion houses like Balenciaga had innovation teams looking at opportunities related to the metaverse and web3 -- versions of the internet built around blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens.

"We’re at a very precocious stage of what may happen, nothing is certain,” Pinault said at the time. The approach taken