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Most comments suggest using BTC in various ways, as usual. I'm curious as to why hasn't a stablecoin been adoptet/gained mainstream traction for this use case y

by tcgv 5y ago

Most comments suggest using BTC in various ways, as usual. I'm curious as to why hasn't a stablecoin been adoptet/gained mainstream traction for this use case yet? They seem like a perfect fit for making digital payments while preventing exposure to crypto volatility.

robcohen 5y ago
They are the perfect application, the problem is that they are generally expensive to use (see ethereum fees). There are efforts to get smart contracts working in Bitcoin, but we’re waiting for full implementation of taproot for most of that to be feasible. Stellar USDC is cheap to use, but Stellar seems pretty centralized to me, so there’s that issue. Another problem is that you need to convert USDC to USD, which is yet another step and also considered a trade so there’s more bookkeeping there.
- tcgv 5y ago
  Good point, ethereum fees are a deal breaker. At least with regards to the fees problem we now have side chains that make really cheap to send/receive stablecoins (USDC, USDT, DAI, etc). You can currently transact stablecoins on Polygon paying one tenth of a penny in fees [1], and there's more than US$ 1bi in stablecoin supply already being transacted there (US$ 700mi for USDC alone). [1] https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xc260342a31648108f88e3cb5afe740a4ca18b24aca941ced86e1e5a1fee338b4 https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xc260342a31648108f88e3cb5afe740a...
__d 5y ago
The "perfect fit for making digital payments while preventing exposure to crypto volatility" is ummm ... fiat with Visa/Mastercard? Which is exactly why no cryptocurrency has gained mainstream traction: it's solving a "problem" that doesn't exist for most people, and doing so in a way that introduces new problems.
- smabie 5y ago
  traditional payment processors wield undo influence and control over businesses: just look at the past onlyfans drama. Moving away from a duopoly that censors legal businesses it doesn't like is definitely valuable, and also something a stable coin could facilitate. Moving money around onchain is orders of magnitudes easier than using the tradfi systems. Most crypto firms (trading firms, VCs, protocols, etc) are exclusively using crypto to invest in deals, pay employees, etc. It really is so much better. And I say this as someone who works in crypto for purely practical purposes (ie making money) and does not buy into the idea of crypto utopia.
  - Daishiman 5y ago
    And yet you can't buy anything with crypto, as evidenced by an entire thread full of solutions that either, a) nobody uses, b) are terribly difficult to implement as a layman, or c) are possibly vehicles for fraud. As a guy who had no fear compiling Gentoo kernels 15 years ago, saying you can actually use BTC to pay for things is about a feasible as saying that 2005 was the year of the Linux desktop.
    - new_guy 5y ago
      Sample size of one but I just bought my new phone with crypto.
    - smabie 5y ago
      This isn't actually true, there are many ways to buy stuff with crypto.
      - Daishiman 5y ago
        This is about as useful as saying in 2005 that you could play games on Linux.
        smabie 5y ago
        I have coworkers that don't have bank accounts and just have FTX debit cards. Is that good enough?
- anonymoushn 5y ago
  Maybe merchants don't want to pay 5% or whatever
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    The customers get to make the choice, not the merchants. You can offer a 5% discount for purchases in your favorite stablecoin, but outside of a few specific niches, most customers will actually prefer CC payments instead of the discount.

by tcgv 5y ago

robcohen 5y ago

They are the perfect application, the problem is that they are generally expensive to use (see ethereum fees). There are efforts to get smart contracts working in Bitcoin, but we’re waiting for full implementation of taproot for most of that to be feasible. Stellar USDC is cheap to use, but Stellar seems pretty centralized to me, so there’s that issue. Another problem is that you need to convert USDC to USD, which is yet another step and also considered a trade so there’s more bookkeeping there.

tcgv 5y ago
Good point, ethereum fees are a deal breaker. At least with regards to the fees problem we now have side chains that make really cheap to send/receive stablecoins (USDC, USDT, DAI, etc). You can currently transact stablecoins on Polygon paying one tenth of a penny in fees [1], and there's more than US$ 1bi in stablecoin supply already being transacted there (US$ 700mi for USDC alone). [1] https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xc260342a31648108f88e3cb5afe740a4ca18b24aca941ced86e1e5a1fee338b4 https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xc260342a31648108f88e3cb5afe740a...

__d 5y ago

The "perfect fit for making digital payments while preventing exposure to crypto volatility" is ummm ... fiat with Visa/Mastercard? Which is exactly why no cryptocurrency has gained mainstream traction: it's solving a "problem" that doesn't exist for most people, and doing so in a way that introduces new problems.

smabie 5y ago
traditional payment processors wield undo influence and control over businesses: just look at the past onlyfans drama. Moving away from a duopoly that censors legal businesses it doesn't like is definitely valuable, and also something a stable coin could facilitate. Moving money around onchain is orders of magnitudes easier than using the tradfi systems. Most crypto firms (trading firms, VCs, protocols, etc) are exclusively using crypto to invest in deals, pay employees, etc. It really is so much better. And I say this as someone who works in crypto for purely practical purposes (ie making money) and does not buy into the idea of crypto utopia.
- Daishiman 5y ago
  And yet you can't buy anything with crypto, as evidenced by an entire thread full of solutions that either, a) nobody uses, b) are terribly difficult to implement as a layman, or c) are possibly vehicles for fraud. As a guy who had no fear compiling Gentoo kernels 15 years ago, saying you can actually use BTC to pay for things is about a feasible as saying that 2005 was the year of the Linux desktop.
  - new_guy 5y ago
    Sample size of one but I just bought my new phone with crypto.
  - smabie 5y ago
    This isn't actually true, there are many ways to buy stuff with crypto.
    - Daishiman 5y ago
      This is about as useful as saying in 2005 that you could play games on Linux.
      - smabie 5y ago
        I have coworkers that don't have bank accounts and just have FTX debit cards. Is that good enough?
anonymoushn 5y ago
Maybe merchants don't want to pay 5% or whatever
- PeterisP 5y ago
  The customers get to make the choice, not the merchants. You can offer a 5% discount for purchases in your favorite stablecoin, but outside of a few specific niches, most customers will actually prefer CC payments instead of the discount.