15-60 minute settlement times early on certainly didn't help
Meanwhile, for over a decade now, Litecoin has had a settlement time of 2.5 minutes. And, for tiny (sub $100) transactions, it’s totally reasonable to just look up the wallet’s holdings in an instant.
For online transactions, you can always let the customer go immediately. Just wait 3 minutes before you ship :P
And, yet people say crypto can’t work because the fees are too high (they’re lower) and the settlement times are too slow (they’re faster).
Dealing with merchant fraud is a legit call-out though. I don’t know what a good crypto solution to that is. I can imagine replacing that department with a smart contract. But, I’ve haven’t looked around to see what’s been tried.