Adoption is on everyone’s minds. It is what will make the true potential of crypto and blockhain tech a reality for everyone around the world. In this series, we are taking a look at why adoption isn’t just a fascinating prospect, but also a true necessity for humankind to achieve a heretofore unforeseen level of progress.
You can find the third part of the series (as well as links to the others) right here, in case you missed them.
Today, however, we will be telling you about one key aspect of adoption that is near and dear to us.
Ecommerce is no longer local
Ecommerce is one of the most important ways of doing business nowadays. We’ve been toying around with it for a couple of decades, but the global pandemic gave us a brand new perspective. We were forced indoors by measures meant to protect our health and our lives. We couldn’t go to our usual stores. Even supermarkets felt dangerous. So what did we do? We turned to the Internet.
The United Nations calls it a “turning point”, and most of us felt it as we felt the massive power of the Internet come to our rescue in such a difficult and trying time. Our entertainment migrated online, but increasingly so did our shopping.
Businesses had to adapt.
Large and small, stores started selling online. Everyone started shipping everywhere. Ecommerce was the saviour for every kind of business, from multinational corporations to small mom n’ pop stores. From May to July 2020, businesses invested over 10 billion USD in their ecommerce strategies.
This meant we had no reason to only shop in our local places. Even if we didn’t live in large cities, we now had access to both the largest shops and the nichest, most specific, businesses. 26% of people actually made plans to move to less dense areas.
Global ecommerce is, more and more, a reality.
Payments, however, did not keep up
One thing brands quickly discovered when they started shipping everywhere, however, is that money doesn’t seem to travel all that well.
We wrote an article in May 2020 about this because the whole world suddenly discovered what we had already known for a while: payment processors do not like global commerce. Payment processing fees can increase tenfold if you suddenly decide you want to ship from the EU to the US or vice versa.
Is there a reason for this?
No.
Is there a reason it should be so unsafe that you have to share your personal details online?
No.
And there is no reason it should take so long either.
Crypto is an Internet-native solution for all of these issues
The first three issues in this series are about how crypto serves as a much better alternative to traditional forms of money in several realms.
Now, it’s time to look at the very specific use case that is payments, and especially online payments, that have become a key aspect of how we live our lives.
We know a few things about online payments, so let us make our case:
- A market that is growing massively: Over 300 million people are using crypto, and the market is expected to triple in under a decade. This is indisputable proof that this technology is eagerly desired by the people adopting it. If people were happy with traditional currencies and payment methods, this quite simply wouldn’t be happening.
- Foolproof security: No chargebacks. No intermediary (not even us, as a payment gateway) can mess with what you do with your own money. Transactions are immutable and saved in a public ledger. You also never have to share your personal information online. No more credit card numbers just floating around for people to steal.
- No border fees, no hidden fees: Ever. We charge a 1% flat fee, period. No exceptions. The Internet is borderless. It costs us exactly the same to process a payment from South Africa or Europe. Why would we make up charges?
- No volatility: This is something that may scare people. This is a new market, it hasn’t stabilised yet, sometimes it does unexpected things. Well, not to worry. Merchants that use Utrust needn’t worry at all. If you want to fully embrace crypto, we are happy to offer crypto settlements. If you’d rather settle in fiat, you can do that too. No crypto accounting if you don’t want it. Get paid in fiat in your bank account, as per usual.
- Go truly global: We are borderless, and your payments and invoices can be too. And guess what? No added delays, or issues of any kind. Get paid in whichever way you prefer and make no distinctions between any of your customers or partners.
- Wallet agnostic: Your customers can pay with their preferred wallet, whatever it is. The great thing about building a brand new ecosystem is that you get to make the rules, and we have decided to serve as well as we possibly could.
Ecommerce is a cornerstone in our modern lives.
There is no reason it should be hamstrung by the rules of old technology.
Global ecommerce needs Internet-native currencies was originally published in UTRUST on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.