Four years ago, fast-food chain KFC tweeted from its Canadian account that it would allow bitcoin as a means of payment for its chicken buckets.

The company said the ad campaign was an hour-long joke and did not receive any payment in Cryptocurrency since, but on the internet, articles continue to claim that KFC "accepts" bitcoins.

Other companies, such as Tesla and Dell, offered to sell their products in bitcoins before quietly giving up on these initiatives.

Bitcoin will probably never be used for everyday purchases, as it is a particularly volatile asset and every transaction is expensive, energy-intensive and takes at least half an hour to be processed.

There are, however, thousands of other cryptocurrencies that are more stable than bitcoin and with shorter execution times for payments. According to the specialized site CoinMarketCap, the total value of cryptocurrency assets is more than $ 2 trillion, half of which are bitcoins.

Microsoft is one of the big companies that are cautiously advancing in the field of cryptocurrencies. The US tech giant insists that its shareholders will never be exposed to price fluctuations in digital currencies. PayPal and Apple have made similar promises.

Microsoft has partnered with Bakkt, a service that allows you to convert your cryptocurrency assets into various products like Xbox gift cards or add credit to a payment card Starbucks.

Supported by Microsoft's M12 investment fund, Bakkt went public on the New York Stock Exchange last year and has forged a series of partnerships with companies, including Mastercard, which drove up its stock.

But after announcing significant losses, Bakkt saw his title collapse, raising questions about the viability of his model. The company, which was targeting 9 million customers at the end of 2021, reported only 1.7 million active accounts at the end of last year.

For its part, PayPal has been offering since last year in the United States and the United Kingdom a system to pay in cryptocurrencies through which users' cryptoassets are directly converted in dollars or pounds when they make purchases.

The popularity of this service and other similar initiatives remains difficult to establish. Market observers believe that it is still too early to say whether these incursions into the world of cryptocurrencies will pay off.

The limits to the mass adoption of cryptocurrency payments for everyday consumer products are considerable, if not insurmountable.