Ethereum gas prices are so enormously high that doing any transaction at all on it seems pretty cost prohibitive at the moment IMHO
Yes, USDC is by definition DeFi. This is VISA plugging into it, providing ON-RAMPS and OFF-RAMPS into the whole DeFi and Ethereum ecosystem.
Take it from Circle's CEO Jeremy Allaire (the organization behind USDC):
"Major USDC news today - @Visa has become the first major payments network to support USDC as a native currency and settlement system on its network. This is massive news, and marks a major turning point in mainstream adoption of crypto.
With USDC being the fastest growing dollar digital currency in the world, connecting its use to existing global networks will accelerate its adoption as both a store of value and medium of exchange. Crypto dollars FTW!
What does this really mean? A customer who has USDC in a wallet, and a card attached to their wallet (there are now dozens of these) can spend at any Visa accepting merchant, and the USDC is used to settle the transaction with Visa instead of the legacy banking system.
For Visa, this means they get the money as fast as a blockchain moves funds, without reversal risk, without the time delays and costs of SWIFT, ACH, etc. Huge!
This is "Over-the-Top" (OTT) money, and a major step in our mission to build a new global economic system on a more open, global, safe and inclusive foundation built on crypto and blockchain tech.
Huge congrats to @cuysheffield and the team at @Visa for really putting your money where your mouth is and embracing the future, we welcome you with open arms in the movement towards an open internet of value!"
I didn't ask how much DeFi has grown, you said 1 to 40B I can divide 40 by 1. Im curious why you think no other sector has grown by $39B.
For instance the S&P 500 is $33.4T in market cap and it's up 75% year over year, or an increase of 20T. That's a substantially larger sector growth. Or are you measuring it by percentages? It's really easy to grow peanuts into 40 peanuts, and I'm sure I can find you another sector. Point is you haven't provided any explanation or citations for your claim.
USDC isn't the definition of DeFi, it's a stablecoin. It's a literal pile of tokenized money. That's a centralized system. It's not like Visa is allowing settlement via DAI.
> With USDC being the fastest growing dollar digital currency in the world, connecting its use to existing global networks will accelerate its adoption as both a store of value and medium of exchange. Crypto dollars FTW!
Paolo would obviously disagree with that lol.
> What does this really mean? A customer who has USDC in a wallet, and a card attached to their wallet (there are now dozens of these) can spend at any Visa accepting merchant, and the USDC is used to settle the transaction with Visa instead of the legacy banking system.
I didn't see that in the article. Given that it's on Ethereum, and gas prices are staggering, it's very unlikely that's what's happening, so exactly what is? And why? Merchant's don't want USDC they want dollars, who's on the other end of the settlements? Ok they'll accept digital currency to net up once a month but then what? Will they be the ones to liquidate it?
> For Visa, this means they get the money as fast as a blockchain moves funds, without reversal risk, without the time delays and costs of SWIFT, ACH, etc. Huge!
Uh... buddy?
The blockchain is slow, you know that right? Visa can move money way, way faster through a network known as Visa. And they can do it far less expensively. And yeah, they're the ones who get to dictate reversal risk because they're Visa. If people didn't want reversal risk Visa wouldn't have it. But they do want it. And for them ACHs cost about 1/10th of a penny each, and wires are roughly free, too. RTP is going to be free and instant - rollout is going well in the US.
Visa is also way cheaper, they take a few basis points on Visanet transfers.
> This is "Over-the-Top" (OTT) money, and a major step in our mission to build a new global economic system on a more open, global, safe and inclusive foundation built on crypto and blockchain tech.
Why does one centralized organization moving a centralized representation of a centralized currency (the USD dollar in a big ol' bank account at Circle HQ) -- roughly speaking company scrip -- fit that definition at all?
> Huge congrats to @cuysheffield and the team at @Visa for really putting your money where your mouth is and embracing the future, we welcome you with open arms in the movement towards an open internet of value!"
At this point I'm actually not sure if you're a bot. Say potato!
Hey, fastest growing, means RATE OF GROWTH. 40x is how life-changing gains are made. That's the number that VCs are hoping to hit when they poor several million into a startup. Right, the finance world works off of ROR, it's called Rate of Return. Look up that up sometime.
> The blockchain is slow, you know that right?
No, it's not. It has 100% uptime and you can execute ANY transaction within 15 seconds on Ethereum layer 1. Depending on congestion, you may have to pay a higher fee ($20-$40 as mentioned above). Paying $20 to settle millions of dollars in 15 seconds is a no-brainer for a company like VISA. It's trivial compared to what they currently pay to interact with the legacy system.
Anyways, you're obviously close-minded and anti-crypto, and you're going to get left in the stone age. Your ignorance is my alpha. Stay curious!
Fastest relative to? Do you have a chart or some numbers? Or are you just saying that because the number seems big? You know a 40X increase in locked-up value doesn't translate to 40X returns for anyone right?
> No, it's not. It has 100% uptime and you can execute ANY transaction within 15 seconds on Ethereum layer 1.
I believe Visa settles in 15 milliseconds lol.
> Anyways, you're obviously close-minded and anti-crypto, and you're going to get left in the stone age. Your ignorance is my alpha. Stay curious!
That's a very Crypto position to take, i.e. a zero-sum position. My "ignorance" (in spite of the fact I understand the space very well, I just haven't drank nearly as much koolaid as you have) has nothing to do with your "alpha." Trust me, I spend a lot of time researching this space. There's just nothing there.