I did see that at Hive fest users could pay for their coffee with HBD and I am really fascinated with the idea of a world where we could find more merchants who accept hive and HBD along with other cryptocurrencies.
Cut to reality
The world is ruled by Fiat money
We are living in a world governed by Fiat currencies. From the moment we begin to use money we are told about FIAT money. Ironically we start working giving our hard work and dedication and 100% in exchange for the local Fiat money. Though initially the ideas of working and getting money in return may seem to be financially liberating.
However, the funny thing is that all we get in exchange for our hard work and dedication is paper printed with a picture, some numbers and a notional value.
FIAT keeps failing us
Ideally if you hold $100 value of cash now its buying power should hold for a long period of time. Unfortunately this is not the case the dynamics of the economy are such that over time the buying power of the money you hold keeps going down.
FIAT currencies keep failing us as they keep losing value. Even if we were to save some of the money that we have it still loses value as its
We need an alternative
We need an alternative to conventional money. The idea of money is old and a useful one however the idea of handling money involves a cost which is not always convenient.
There is a cost to deposit money as well as to withdraw it.
In case you are running a business then there is a cost to accept money in the form of credit cards. For this you have to pay a fee to your payment processor.
Crypto could be the best solution...
In these uncertain times of high inflation people often look towards crypto and wonder if crypto coils someday replace conventional paper money.
Well that may be a distant pipe dream but it sure can coexist with fiat money.
Pitfalls of using crypto in business
In case you are thinking of accepting crypto as a mode of payment in your business then you must consider the fact that most cryptos display a high degree of volatility.
This can cause a business significant losses if the value of crypto they use to accept payment goes down in value.
I way to combat such a situation would be to either use stable coins as a mode of payment or use a mechanism that quickly changes the crypto they accept to their local fiat or a token backed by FIAT.
A third thing that can be a deterrent in accepting crypto is the high network fee that is associated with coins like BTC or ETH
While exploring this idea I stumbled upon some interesting idea that are being offered by a business called PalmPay
Enter PalmPay
PalmPay lets a business accept digital currency however at zero cost.
Since crypto is a global currency, a business can accept payments from around the globe.
With this they can accept
- Hive
- HBD
- BTS
- Bitcoin
- Bitcoin Cash
- bitUSD
- bitEUR
- bitMXN etc
With PalmPay one can use their software that uses a free crypto point of sale software that can be used by any business.
You may have any business bet it
- Retail
- A Cafe/Bar
- Restaurant
- A gas Station
- Bill Pay Counters
- Grocery
- Delivery based business
- Phone orders etc
If a business accepts money it can incorporate the feature of accepting crypto that too at zero fee. This is the feature propagated by PalmPay.io
What PalmPay does
PalmPay makes it possible for the business to focus on accepting crypto without having to bother about the underlying technology.
PalmPay being a business friendly solution offers setting up of the payment accepting facility at
- Zero Cost
- Zero Setup Fee
- Zero Monthly fee
- Zero transaction fee
The cost of the transaction is 0.5% and it is borne by the customers.
In exchange for the fee the customer gets to pay with the crypto of their choice and the right from their mobile phone.
how PalmPay does it
The PalmPay payment solution combats volatility by converting the crypto paid by the client into the local currency backed stable currency.
To cater to businesses in various demographics it uses various stable pairs such as
- bitEUR,
- bitUSD,
- bitJPY,
- bitKRW,
- bitRUB or even bitGold and bitSilver.
PalmPay refers to them as smart coins and they are pegged 1:1 to the asset that they are pegged to.
A merchant in France may receive a dogecoin payment and it quickly gets converted to bitEUR to mitigate the volatility risk.
Final thoughts
Businesses are always on the lookout for new and innovative solutions and this solution presents a lot of opportunities by way of a new set of paying customers that hold crypto.
For the customers it offers an opportunity to use their crypto as real world fiat money and make purchases.
Overall this is a win-win situation for both sides.
For more information check out the PalmPay website.
They also have a presence on Hive