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Comment by OrlandoHakim | Hacker News Reader

It’s true that txs take more time and money in POW chains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, but it is certainly not true of many many other cryptocurrencies.

For example, Terra is a Proof of Stake blockchain with negligible fees and a 6 second settlement time. It is currently widely used as a payment system in South Korea.

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I live in South Korea and like to think that I keep track of the current state of fintech but I have never heard of Terra or any cryptocurrency being widely used for payments. Where is it usable?

https://www.terra.money - to learn about Terra, founded by Do Kwon a Korean Billionaire entrepreneur They offer many currrency mirroring stablecoins including Korean Won in addition to the US dollar-pegged coins.

https://chai.finance/ Chai is the Payments solution. I’m told they have 2 million users in Korea but you may know better. It can be used to pay in MacDonalds and Starbucks to name a couple examples.

Ah, I see. I haven't used Chai but from what I can tell it's a service that lets you make payments through multiple methods (e.g credit card, bank transfer). I don't think they've published statistics but I'm guessing most of their payments don't go through crypto.

Probably true that most payments still go through traditional payment rails. Crypto is still an emerging technology and most people don’t own crypto.

I still find it interesting to know that one can pay for a Big Mac or a Latte using stablecoins as an option in Korea.

What about charge backs? What protections do I have?

No chargebacks and ability for government or corporate deplatforming.

That’s not a problem the average consumer has, not even close to the same way music was really annoying to consume before the iPod. Like, sucks for those it happens to, but it just isn’t a “real” problem in the grand scheme of life

The average consumer is currently facing the prospect of high-inflation, exploding gas prices, and is facing a real challenge if they want to safely save the purchasing power of their earnings. I consider these to be important problems to solve so the average consumer can continue to stay above water and maybe even get ahead in life.

There is a joke about how the things we want are getting cheaper (iPhones, TVs, music streaming) while the things we need are getting more expensive (food, housing, healthcare, higher education)

Offering society a high-yield stablecoin savings option finally allows people to grow their savings and stay ahead of inflation with low relative risk.

I think that’s a honking good idea.

These aren't problems crypto actually solves. If used as an actual day-to-day replacement for the dollar, they would still be subject to the same market pressures that drive inflation and gas prices.

Perhaps you missed my other comments on this thread where I explained multiple ways to earn savings rates on stablecoins that significantly exceed the inflation rate. No traditional bank offers similar options.

I can’t speak to the payments solution https://chai.finance/ but UST is censorship-resistant like Bitcoin and does not have chargebacks. I consider that a feature, not a bug.

You may consider that a feature, but most people don't. As someone who has had to issue a chargeback in the past, I'm not about to give it up in exchange for solving a hypothetical problem that does not affect me. Chargebacks are not "censorship".

Fair enough. I still use my credit card for most purchases also and I too appreciate the ability to chargeback if needed.

Still, it is important to appreciate that consumers do pay a premium for this feature on all transactions built into the price because merchant account for the risk of chargebacks when setting their prices. I can’t estimate the amount of premium but I would guess it adds up to a few percent.

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