110 year old retail giant bealls accept meme coins and stablecoins in stores

Bealls now accepts over 99 digital currencies from 300 wallets through the new Flexa Payments integration.

Bealls, a 110-year-old American retail chain with more than 660 stores across the country, has announced a new partnership with digital payments company Flexa to enable cryptocurrency payments in its stores. With this integration, Bealls becomes the first national retailer to accept digital currency from any crypto wallet across more than a dozen blockchains simultaneously.

The announcement marks Bealls’ 110th anniversary and highlights the company’s continued focus on innovation and improving the customer experience. Over the years, the retailer has invested in new technologies such as in-store kiosks and online shopping, and this latest move places the company among the early adopters of crypto payments in physical retail.

Bealls is making a crypto leap

According to the official press release, the system supports a wide range of assets including stablecoins and meme coins. Customers can make purchases with digital currency at Bealls, Bealls Florida and Home Centric stores.

As part of the deal, the retailer will use Flexa Payments, a digital payment solution designed for speed and versatility. The platform allows merchants to accept more than 99 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and stablecoins like USDC, from more than 300 different wallets.

Flexa Payments connects to existing retail systems and works in mobile, in-app and in-store environments. It also delivers near-instant transaction processing and automatically supports new currency and wallet applications as they become available.

The partnership comes as more Americans turn to digital assets for everyday transactions. Bealls cited a study showing that by early 2025, about 28% of U.S. adults, estimated to be about 65 million people, own cryptocurrency. The partnership with Flexa expands the company’s footprint in physical retail while furthering its goal of making digital payments as simple and widely accepted as card or mobile wallet transactions.

In a statement, the Florida-based company’s chairman and CEO Matt Beall said:

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“Digital currency will reshape the way the world does business, and Bealls is proud to be at the forefront of that transformation. Our partnership with Flexa is about more than just payments; it’s about preparing for the future of commerce and continuing to innovate for the next 110 years.”

Institutions are diving deeper into digital assets

Bealls’ move reflects a broader trend in the financial and commercial sectors, with institutions steadily increasing exposure to blockchain-based investments. A study from State Street shows that allocations to cryptocurrencies, digital cash and tokenized securities are expected to more than double by 2028. More than half of respondents believe that tokenized assets will make up a quarter of total portfolios by 2030.

Asset managers in particular are active and own more Bitcoin and Ethereum than asset owners. A small but growing portion are even experimenting with newer categories like meme coins and NFTs.