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I was fairly into the space in 2014-2016 but stopped paying attention the last few years. It seems like lots of theorized applications actually exist and have a

I was fairly into the space in 2014-2016 but stopped paying attention the last few years. It seems like lots of theorized applications actually exist and have a proof-of-concept now. If I’m building a marketplace business in 2021, where I want to be “crypto-first” instead of relying on PayPal and Stripe Connect, where do I start? The marketplace sells access to resources with an off-chain ACL system. It facilitates trades between resource sellers and buyers. I assume I want a smart contract between buyer/seller to record resource grants on chain, which the access layer checks as a source of truth. But if I were to do this on Ethereum, the gas fees would be really expensive. I’ve heard about Polygon and “optimistic roll-up.” Is this a viable solution?

wbc 5y ago
Check out Solana if you want lower fees
- throwaway-8c93 5y ago
  Low fees - but only once you're in the crypto ecosystem. If you're after dollars or euros, the on-ramp and off-ramp at exchanges adds a comparable, if not higher layer of fees than existing payment mechanisms, kind of defeating the whole purpose.
de_keyboard 5y ago
> If I’m building a marketplace business in 2021, where I want to be “crypto-first” instead of relying on PayPal and Stripe Connect, where do I start? Unless you are building a dark web market, why would you want to? It will be more convenient for the vast majority of users to pay with card or PayPal.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  I believe there are some use cases. Think of a government which does not allow currency conversion to more stable currencies in a place where volatility or inflation is very high. In that situation, it might be worth adopting a crypto-first approach, no?
  - bhandziuk 5y ago
    But doesn't crypto have very high volatility?
    - wmf 5y ago
      For example, Reserve is a stablecoin designed for markets like Venezuela where it's "illegal" to use USD or EUR.
      - tratax 5y ago
        I'm pretty sure they will make all the stablecoins illegal as well. The fact that they cant really enforce it .. thats something else.
        svarog-run 5y ago
        Normal citizens won't need 3rd party stablecoins when cbdcs are available
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  One reason that comes to mind is trying to be the change they want to see in the world. Cards and Paypal already have heaps of adoption.
  - svarog-run 5y ago
    The end user won't see a change in their cards though
- 533474 5y ago
  why does it have to be a dark-web market if blockchain payments are first class citizens? I suppose the general population isn't ready for decentralised payments yet or do you have another reason for such use-case generalization?
  - _jjkk 5y ago
    There are still many barriers to that "first class" status, taxes are mentioned most often. Taxes are paid in fiat. Holding non-stablecoins would add even more of a tax headache because you'd have to track capital gain/loss as you enter/exit fiat for taxes / fees / vendors that don't accept crypto Also the fact that general adoption has been slow so far may be a sign that there is not enough obvious value added for the average person to consider using crypto over fiat.
    - svarog-run 5y ago
      who would pay with non-stablecoins though? The oath seems to be cbdcs that are compatible with public smart contract blockchains
      - AlexandrB 5y ago
        There's also the risk that stablecoins aren't actually stable but just claim to be such: https://www.coindesk.com/tether-first-reserve-composition-report-usdt https://www.coindesk.com/tether-first-reserve-composition-re...
X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
Polygon & "optimistic roll-ups" are generally referred to as L2. In general this part of the etherum ecosystem is just starting up and the only one that has seen much adoption so far is Polygon (which did 4M tx yesterday & still has low fees). Using an L2 system will mean that your user will need to be using that specific L2 system as well, but the UX doesn't seem so bad (at least for ETH -> polygon, and for the cryptocurrecny space so far). ETH 2.0 will reduce gas fees somewhat on the mainchain, but it's fairly obvious that there's huge demand, the sharding that ETH 2.0 will do is create 1 shard for execution & 63 for data only. Most L2 systems will mostly use the data shards, so we appear to be heading towards an L2 future. In short if I were building a company in the space I'd be looking at deploying both on the mainchain (L1) and on a L2 system, but prioritize the L2 system. Unfortunately we may end up in a world where there are dozens or more L2 systems and either the users or the companies have to pay the cost to hop between them.
tootie 5y ago
Realistically, you can't. Unless you want to be a very early adopter, no mainstream businesses are accepting payments in crypto. Techwise, Coinbase has a thing: https://commerce.coinbase.com/ https://commerce.coinbase.com/ But I've absolutely never seen it in the wild.
- jaggs 5y ago
  Um...that's not strictly the case though? https://blog.bitgo.com/24-major-businesses-accepting-bitcoin-crypto-payments-edf8ab0d7c7e https://blog.bitgo.com/24-major-businesses-accepting-bitcoin... (Tesla has recanted 'for now').
  - nomel 5y ago
    This list seems silly. For example: > In a 2013 video, a man appears to be paying for his meal at Subway using Bitcoin in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And, many are only at select locations, "will be", "unveils plans", and "testing".
- Ono-Sendai 5y ago
  I use coinbase to accept crypto payments for virtual property here: https://substrata.info/parcel_auction_list https://substrata.info/parcel_auction_list
- iamlolz 5y ago
  To add my experience. I looked at rolling out Coinbase commerce a couple of years ago and then again a couple of months ago. I found their current integrations lacked support or were seemingly abandoned. Contacting general or merchant support often took over 2 weeks to get a response, which was a deal-breaker for any service that would inevitably impact customers on our end.
  - tootie 5y ago
    I'm not even really talking about technical limitations. More that 90% of consumers don't own any crypto. And (more controversially) it has completely morphed into an investment asset class. One that is possibly in a deflationary spiral where no one wants to spend any of it. IMHO it has really failed in it's mission of actually being a currency.
TarasBob 5y ago
This is a great solution called zk-rollup (zero knowledge rollup) https://zksync.io/ https://zksync.io/ It is just as secure as the base chain (unlike polygon) and has low fees and has been live for the past few months. This is a perfect solution to simple payments. The difference between optimistic rollups and zero knowledge rollups is that you can’t deploy arbitrary smart contracts to zk rollup, it only supports a limited set of use cases, such as simple payments for now. Read more here https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
  As a side note: If you as a reader are interested in math & crypto the stuff being done in the zero knowledge space w.r.t. cryptocurrencies is really cool regardless of your opinion on cryptocurrencies in general.
- hanniabu 5y ago
  Also zkSync has general EVM compatibility coming in a few months
- randomopining 5y ago
  What coin does zk-rollup use? or just base Ethereum?
  - TarasBob 5y ago
    It can use any coin. You can send ETH or any token, including stable coins such as DAI or USDC.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
    the current solutions do 'native fees' which means you pay the fee in whatever you are sending. This can't really last because I could create SPAM coin with 1B marketcap and overload the network with it. IIRC they'll eventually create their own native token when their EVM compatible rollup is out.
random_kris 5y ago
If you want to use microlayments, payment processing checkout the btcpayserver and Bitcoin lightning Network.

wbc 5y ago

Check out Solana if you want lower fees

throwaway-8c93 5y ago
Low fees - but only once you're in the crypto ecosystem. If you're after dollars or euros, the on-ramp and off-ramp at exchanges adds a comparable, if not higher layer of fees than existing payment mechanisms, kind of defeating the whole purpose.

de_keyboard 5y ago

> If I’m building a marketplace business in 2021, where I want to be “crypto-first” instead of relying on PayPal and Stripe Connect, where do I start? Unless you are building a dark web market, why would you want to? It will be more convenient for the vast majority of users to pay with card or PayPal.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago
I believe there are some use cases. Think of a government which does not allow currency conversion to more stable currencies in a place where volatility or inflation is very high. In that situation, it might be worth adopting a crypto-first approach, no?
- bhandziuk 5y ago
  But doesn't crypto have very high volatility?
  - wmf 5y ago
    For example, Reserve is a stablecoin designed for markets like Venezuela where it's "illegal" to use USD or EUR.
    - tratax 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure they will make all the stablecoins illegal as well. The fact that they cant really enforce it .. thats something else.
      - svarog-run 5y ago
        Normal citizens won't need 3rd party stablecoins when cbdcs are available
selfhoster11 5y ago
One reason that comes to mind is trying to be the change they want to see in the world. Cards and Paypal already have heaps of adoption.
- svarog-run 5y ago
  The end user won't see a change in their cards though
533474 5y ago
why does it have to be a dark-web market if blockchain payments are first class citizens? I suppose the general population isn't ready for decentralised payments yet or do you have another reason for such use-case generalization?
- _jjkk 5y ago
  There are still many barriers to that "first class" status, taxes are mentioned most often. Taxes are paid in fiat. Holding non-stablecoins would add even more of a tax headache because you'd have to track capital gain/loss as you enter/exit fiat for taxes / fees / vendors that don't accept crypto Also the fact that general adoption has been slow so far may be a sign that there is not enough obvious value added for the average person to consider using crypto over fiat.
  - svarog-run 5y ago
    who would pay with non-stablecoins though? The oath seems to be cbdcs that are compatible with public smart contract blockchains
    - AlexandrB 5y ago
      There's also the risk that stablecoins aren't actually stable but just claim to be such: https://www.coindesk.com/tether-first-reserve-composition-report-usdt https://www.coindesk.com/tether-first-reserve-composition-re...

X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago

Polygon & "optimistic roll-ups" are generally referred to as L2. In general this part of the etherum ecosystem is just starting up and the only one that has seen much adoption so far is Polygon (which did 4M tx yesterday & still has low fees). Using an L2 system will mean that your user will need to be using that specific L2 system as well, but the UX doesn't seem so bad (at least for ETH -> polygon, and for the cryptocurrecny space so far). ETH 2.0 will reduce gas fees somewhat on the mainchain, but it's fairly obvious that there's huge demand, the sharding that ETH 2.0 will do is create 1 shard for execution & 63 for data only. Most L2 systems will mostly use the data shards, so we appear to be heading towards an L2 future. In short if I were building a company in the space I'd be looking at deploying both on the mainchain (L1) and on a L2 system, but prioritize the L2 system. Unfortunately we may end up in a world where there are dozens or more L2 systems and either the users or the companies have to pay the cost to hop between them.

tootie 5y ago

Realistically, you can't. Unless you want to be a very early adopter, no mainstream businesses are accepting payments in crypto. Techwise, Coinbase has a thing: https://commerce.coinbase.com/ https://commerce.coinbase.com/ But I've absolutely never seen it in the wild.

jaggs 5y ago
Um...that's not strictly the case though? https://blog.bitgo.com/24-major-businesses-accepting-bitcoin-crypto-payments-edf8ab0d7c7e https://blog.bitgo.com/24-major-businesses-accepting-bitcoin... (Tesla has recanted 'for now').
- nomel 5y ago
  This list seems silly. For example: > In a 2013 video, a man appears to be paying for his meal at Subway using Bitcoin in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And, many are only at select locations, "will be", "unveils plans", and "testing".
Ono-Sendai 5y ago
I use coinbase to accept crypto payments for virtual property here: https://substrata.info/parcel_auction_list https://substrata.info/parcel_auction_list
iamlolz 5y ago
To add my experience. I looked at rolling out Coinbase commerce a couple of years ago and then again a couple of months ago. I found their current integrations lacked support or were seemingly abandoned. Contacting general or merchant support often took over 2 weeks to get a response, which was a deal-breaker for any service that would inevitably impact customers on our end.
- tootie 5y ago
  I'm not even really talking about technical limitations. More that 90% of consumers don't own any crypto. And (more controversially) it has completely morphed into an investment asset class. One that is possibly in a deflationary spiral where no one wants to spend any of it. IMHO it has really failed in it's mission of actually being a currency.

TarasBob 5y ago

This is a great solution called zk-rollup (zero knowledge rollup) https://zksync.io/ https://zksync.io/ It is just as secure as the base chain (unlike polygon) and has low fees and has been live for the past few months. This is a perfect solution to simple payments. The difference between optimistic rollups and zero knowledge rollups is that you can’t deploy arbitrary smart contracts to zk rollup, it only supports a limited set of use cases, such as simple payments for now. Read more here https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html

X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
As a side note: If you as a reader are interested in math & crypto the stuff being done in the zero knowledge space w.r.t. cryptocurrencies is really cool regardless of your opinion on cryptocurrencies in general.
hanniabu 5y ago
Also zkSync has general EVM compatibility coming in a few months
randomopining 5y ago
What coin does zk-rollup use? or just base Ethereum?
- TarasBob 5y ago
  It can use any coin. You can send ETH or any token, including stable coins such as DAI or USDC.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
  the current solutions do 'native fees' which means you pay the fee in whatever you are sending. This can't really last because I could create SPAM coin with 1B marketcap and overload the network with it. IIRC they'll eventually create their own native token when their EVM compatible rollup is out.

random_kris 5y ago

If you want to use microlayments, payment processing checkout the btcpayserver and Bitcoin lightning Network.