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Comment by rprend | Hacker News Reader

1.6 percent of global GDP blows my mind.

Well, it's not exactly a fair comparison, since they're comparing a volume number with GDP, which is total value produced in a year. Volume numbers are usually much bigger than production numbers, since money moves around a lot.

If I pay a restaurant $200 for dinner and my three friends each venmo me $50 for their share, then the exchanged volume was $350, but only $200 worth of value was generated.

Stripe doesn’t power money transfers, just commerce. So 100% of stripe volume is economic activity.

If I buy something worth 17$ from an SMB's website, and the SMB buys their ingredients from their merchants via stripe for 10$, then those suppliers get a bill for 8$, then that's still only 17$ of GDP, but 35$ of stripe transactions.

You’re absolutely right i didnt think of that. Isn’t this what they call velocity of money? So we’d need to calculate the “velocity of stripe” (the flow of dollars within the system).

I think the parent is correct in saying that’s an economic activity though it’s not GDP (Gross Product). It’s difficult to do circular transactions with no “economic value” in stripe the same you can do with bank accounts/wallets.

Do you consider Wise.com to be 'commerce'? Love when people make up percentages and facts!

Wise does accept cards for transfers, but I think most people use cheaper methods. (Also, last time I checked, they’ve used Adyen.)

With all due respect, this comment demonstrates a misunderstanding of basic economic concepts. Gross domestic product is not simply “economic activity” but a measure of value creation. The mere movement of existing value through transactions does not, by itself, constitute economic production, which is why comparing transaction volume to GDP is misleading.

good argument, bad example. GDP is a net revenue number but Stripe is using a gross revenue number (their equivalent of "GMV"). so the numerator/denominator are as different as possible to make it impressive.

For comparison, Visa's stated FY 2025 (ended Sep 30, 2025) payments volume was $14.2T.

rough math, but:

$14.2T / $1.9T * 1.6% = 12% global GDP

I was curious, and the American Clearing House has a TPV of $93 trillion, which means ACH is 78%?? That seems too high.

Oh - not all bank transfers count in GDP. I often move money from one account to another.

Note that Visa has the same issue: withdrawing money from an ATM shouldn’t count towards GDP! Neither does Vemo-ing a friend to settle up a split restaurant bill (my Venmo is attached to my debit card).

At least it’s not 24.9%

Americans and credit have an unhealthy relationship.

Not all VISA or Mastercard transactions are credit backed, I'd argue that the large majority aren't anymore they're more commonly debit VISA/Mastercard

this number is a little misleading, to put it mildly.

Why will a number blow your mind? Have you thought about how Universe exists from nothing?

I find it inspiring. I relate to the Collison brothers. They're a couple of hackers from Ireland. It blows my mind that a couple young guys like that can build something and in 20 years capture 2% of the entire world's economic activity.

They haven’t captured 2% of global economic activity any more than Visa has captured 30%.

Captured value from.

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