Exactly, plus it's even harder if people have to deal with something they are unfamiliar with, i.e. stablecoins. This is why the stablecoin sandwich approach (with on/off ramps built in) are gaining popularity but those processes have their own costs, too.
good insight. I remember my mastercard being declined in store before, but I am not sure if this is still the case. They do accept mastercard online now.
you are absolutely correct about the centralized risks about modern systems, but this is not really something you can use to convince consumers to change their behaviors at scale, besides, cryptos have its own risks.
I am all for changes but they can't take vigors out of markets!
What would convince you as a consumer? If everyday products were 3% cheaper, would that impact you at all? 5% cheaper? At what point do you think people would care? What about cash only businesses? As a consumer would you prefer if you could use your phone instead of pulling out and handling cash?
If adoptions ever takes hold, I think it is unlikely to start with the replacement of payment cards. It is more likely to take hold is specific niches that currently suffer under the MasterCard/Visa duopoly as well as in emerging markets. In the adult industry, I'm sure products being 20% cheaper would sway consumers. Also not to mention the omission of purchases from your credit history which may be judged harshly by others. Low margin businesses could support online and international sales while offering competitive prices. Some markets aren't serviced well by the duopoly. Some consumers value pseudonimity/anonymity in their financial transactions. These can develop into niches where crypto has potential to take hold, and then from there it might expand and compete with the larger markets (and their vigor) if it grows into a competitive product based on fees and usability.
If it ever hits critical mass, vendors will surely either drop card support or strongly encourage cryptocurrency usage. Albeit that is a big "if" that likely comes down to solving a lot of scalability and usability issues right now. There is also a need for regulatory clarity. I think we are a long way away, but I wouldn't write it off simply because I personally find Visa/MasterCard to be convenient in my own life.
Isn't Volt trying to build the cross-border version of this? I was actually not familiar with "pay by bank" before, but it sounds like it makes stablecoins even less attractive for the low-margin business use case a16z (and I am sure there are others) is advocating for.
Not familiar with Volt, their content marketing instant payment map was simply convenient when I searched for one (as I haven’t had time to pay someone to make a Wikipedia page yet with the same content).
