As you may have already seen, Global payments company NCR has announced that one of its merchant point-of-sale (POS) systems will soon offer Bitcoin support.

Merchants have shown an increasing appetite for virtual currency, with more and more offering customers the ability to pay through bitcoins. Shopify recently partnered with GoCoin to enable its 120,000 merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments. These are huge steps in Bitcoin becoming accessible to all.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports e-commerce sales have increased 15.7% since the second quarter of 2013, and expects this number will continue to rise. As more consumers make online purchases, e-retailers are continuing to lead the way in adoption of alternative payment methods.

Due to major innovations in mobile technology and the ever growing rise of internet consumption, mobile payments are certainly the future. Internet use via a mobile device accounts for 55% of the world’s consumption and in the words of Brain Tree’s CEO, Bill Ready, "Bitcoin can insert seamlessly in a digital wallet in a way that a plastic card can't."

This announcement is a great step forward in ensuring mass adoption, not just in the form of the larger well known merchants, but also the sole traders and SME’s, which could allow for individuals to purchase everyday necessities with their bitcoins.