How easy is it for merchants to accept Monero payments and convert them into fiat?

Question

As a merchant I want to limit risk exchange rate fluctuations.

1. How easy is it for me to convert Monero I receive into my local fiat currency?
2. How long would the currency conversion typically take?
3. What amount of slippage might I expect from the conversion based on current liquidity levels?
4. How does any currency slippage compare to the savings I might receive from accepting Monero instead of paying fees to a typical credit card processor?

Answer 1

Currently their are not any liquid exchanges that will convert Monero into fiat directly, although that is likely to change in the future.

1. You can either

   • Send Monero via Shapeshift.io or XMR.to which will send Bitcoin to a fiat payment processor such as Coinbase of Bitpay.;
   • Convert Monero into a fiat equivalent such as USDT (https://tether.to/) which is available on exchanges such as Poloniex.

2. Depending on confirmation times, I would approximate:

   • Converting XMR into fiat via Shapeshift.io or xmr.to to Coinbase, Bitpay or equivalent can easily be completed in 10-20 minutes
   • Conversion to USDT can happen as soon as you can get your Monero to an exchange (such as Poloniex). The number of deposit confirmations required will depend on the verification level of your account.

3. I would expect fees to total under 2% (depending on volume) for the xmr.to/shapeshift.io to fiat option and under 1% for the USDT/tether option

4. The fees will be equivalent or slightly less than the rates chaaged by most credit card companies, without the risk of chargeback and with far superior privacy for your customers.

Answer 2

Javier's answer is already quite complete, the only way of XMR/fiat exchange I'd add to it is the decentralized exchange https://bitsquare.io

While the liquidity is still low but increasing bitsquare enables direct p2p trades without the need to trust in a third party exchange like poloniex, coinbase etc.

related to the low liquidity it makes your second question hard to answer as you need and active human(or at least online) counterpart to trade. atm it's definitely slower than the other options mentioned.