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Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, Square, Apple Pay - there are a ton of companies that all do this same thing in the US because the bank software is terrible and expensive.

I thought stellar was similar to what the parent comment describes, but it’s also not proof of work (which makes need for blockchain unclear).

https://www.stellar.org/

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> Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, Square, Apple Pay - there are a ton of companies that all do this same thing in the US because the bank software is terrible and expensive.

For all intents and purposes, Zelle is the bank software, and it’s free. Zelle is backed by a bunch of banks - the majority of US checking accounts have access to use it at no cost.

I just checked out Stellar... sounds really interesting actually, very much in line with what I described (except blockchain - I can't see if it's public (not good) or private (not much point in it then) but I'm open to being convinced otherwise), there's just one problem... how do I even use it?? There's no app, no nothing. Ideally, I'd like something like TransferWise "I'd like to send money to X" just non-profit.

fwiw, Stellar integrates directly with Keybase.¹ I remember they did an airdrop when they launched and deposited ~100$ worth of XLM into every Keybase users' wallet.

Not sure how interesting Keybase is now, but it does allow sending money to other Keybase users directly through chat.²

[1] https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-stellar-launch

[2] https://book.keybase.io/wallet#chat

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