My favorite Cryptocurrency, how can we get businesses to accept it as payment? Part 2

In My favorite Cryptocurrency series, I have already published an article on my favorite cryptocurrency #SBD. This publication is a sequence to that, with other dimensions to get it mainstream and use it as a payment method.

Out of the many possibilities, I have consolidated the following ones:-

• Getting it listed in popular e-commerce solutions such as Coinbase Commerce.
• Integrating wrapped tokens (WSTEEM or WSBD) in DeFi platforms
• Introducing a Review & Rating platform in Steem Blockchain catering to the Backpackers community

I will go into detail one by one in this article.

Coinbase Commerce

Coinbase is a well-known name in the crypto industry, especially as an exchange, but it also offers e-commerce solutions Coinbase Commerce in which crypto can be used as a payment method and a merchant can easily integrate with & starts accepting crypto for the products they buy/sell.

Coinbase Commerce is integrated with major e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Woocommerce. So anyone who runs an online shop can go for easy integration and support his business. The crypto equally gets mainstream with such an integration.

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Most importantly it is a decentralized solution and the payment happens p2p. The merchant just needs to store the seed phrase of the wallet and can export it to an external wallet, should he wish to. It is slightly different from the traditional services and preferably a better one in my opinion.

Coinbase Commerce does recognize the importance of a stablecoin, hence it also supports stablecoins like DAI, USDC, apart from the major coins like BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC. That gives more flexibility and a perfect balance between the choice of speculative coins (store-in-value coins) as well as stable coins.

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How about adding another stablecoin like SBD into this list, it will automatically get an exposure, will be a boost to Steem Blockchain. Coinbase Commerce is a big platform and it has a wide reach, continuously expanding; 8000+ have already accepted cryptocurrency.

Coins Supported

BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC, DAI, USDC

Customer & Merchant

Coinbase Commerce is a decentralized solution for both Customer and Merchant and the transfer happens p2p. The customer always gets to know the status from the 8 digits alphanumeric code and that code is available in the URL as well as the payment receipt to track it.

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A merchant always has the liberty to toggle which currency he wish to accept. The best part about Coinbase Commerce is that it does not require any documentation and waiting time. A merchant can open an account with an email, and create a hosted checkout, share it with the customers to start accepting crypto as payment to start selling the product.

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Moreover, it does not charge any fees, for withdrawing crypto. But there will be the miner's fees of the underlying blockchain when he withdrawal or transfer coins and for trading crypto, there will be the standard exchange fees of the Coinbase platform. The point is that Coinbase Commerce does not impose any specific merchant fees for this service.

For integration, the merchant needs to whitelist the domain, create an API key, add webhook URLs.

The checkout landing page gives the complete information to the customer, including the real-time status of the transaction, accordingly, the order is processed and completed. The UI also gets updated accordingly.

If you want to connect Coinbase Commerce to your e-commerce provider, there is a complete guide and libraries, on how to integrate. For more details visit this page. A merchant does not need to create an infrastructure for this as Coinbase Commerce takes care of this part.

Thoughts on listing SBD in Coinbase Commerce

A stablecoin by default is an e-commerce coin and it might require less effort to get it listed in a major exchange or e-commerce solution. If we can work on the marketing part, and invest our time and other resources in getting SBD listed on a big platform like Coinbase, then it is very likely to get through Coinbase Commerce.

Being a stablecoin it won't have any issues related to its stability and price volatility. The only thing we need is building a strong community to gain support for SBD as much as we can, spreading it all across the different platforms, allocate more resources on the marketing of this coin. When it comes to utility coin it will be prudent to promote SBD more as a utility coin, whose supply is only 5.82 million.

Integration of WSTEEM or WSBD in DeFi Platforms

DeFi platforms are the major driving force in the last two years and the hype is very likely to continue and in fact, it will have a staggering effect going forward; that will bring significant value to the crypto space. More than 8 billion USD worth crypto being locked in DeFi is a testimony of how strong and desirable it is now in the crypto ecosystem.

That said, it will be wise to associate a coin in some form or the other with DeFi platform. At least DeFi users will get firsthand exposure to the existence of such coin, particularly those who have not heard about Steem before but are associated with DeFi, maybe some of them join us in this social platform and start sharing their experiences of DeFi.

So we can go for the integration of wrapped tokens-- WSTEEM or WSBD in DeFi platforms and introduce such a contract in platforms like MakerDAO, Uniswap, Justswap, etc. We can also encourage the Steem Community to use WSTEEM or WSBD when they need to exchange their STEEM or SBD. We can also introduce a weekly campaign each month within the community to facilitate and support such a move.

Introduce a Review & Rating platform of Backpacker Hostel industries in Steem Blockchain

The backpacker hostel's industries are on a boom in India and other south Asian countries, it has also added a new dimension to the travel & tourism industry. It caters to the middle-class community all across the globe who are keen to explore their travel experience, yet with a limited budget.

The budget might force them to go for a hostel where they share the room(but different sheets, bedroll, etc), shared bathroom, etc. But in that process they also foster a sense of community and their interaction with other travellers is always pulsating, in that process, they also add a new dimension to their travel experience.

That said, these days in a country like India Hostel's industries are on a boom. We have the likes of Stops, Zostel, Jugaad, Moustache, Madpackers, and many more on this list. The start-ups are flourishing in this domain. It started in the year 2013 in India, struggled for the next two years or so, but now it is a booming sector.

There is a booking site called Booking.com. If you visit any of such hostel they used to display their rating(of Booking.com) at the reception desk. In the Booking.com site, at the time of searching for a hostels/hotel, the rating is displayed, one can further go into the review to check what other travelers/backpackers have experienced & said about the facility/property. Booking.com rating is one of the trusted ones in this domain.

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So being a social platform, Steem Blockchain should look for creating a community in this chain, reward such reviews, invite people to immutably record their review in this chain, and accordingly, they should be rewarded for their review. To check any kind of abuse, we can ask the reviewer to show the proof-of-stay before publishing the review experience and accordingly can reward them with an upvote. (This also going to be one of the experiments in Best of India community)

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What the travelers/backpackers are doing in Booking.com(review of hostels), can do so here in Steem Blockchain and we will reward them when the review is attached with proof-of-stay. In time, it will spread as a result of the network effect of the backpacker's community. When we sufficiently grow, we can launch a dapp exclusively for this community to scale it professionally.

I personally know two managers of such hostels in India. I will be happy to reach out to them and at least can start at a small scale to know how the contour is developing (going to be an experiment in Best of India community). But I genuinely see it as a wonderful opportunity to get STEEM or SBD as a payment method.

If we grow bigger in this review domain, we can organize a contest every month and fund the travel experience of up to 200 SBD to the top 5 reviewers (or any similar structure) who publish their review of hostels along with Proof-of-stay.

The per night stay in hostels in India ranges from 200 INR(~2.7 USD) to 450(~6.08 USD) INR depending on the cities, competition level, on & off-season. We can easily organize a contest and fund a few reviewers for a short stay.

The other positive side-effect will be that, if more such backpackers get exposure to STEEM and SBD, we can collaborate with few hostels and tell them to give a discount of 5 to 10% if someone books his/her stay by using SBD or STEEM as payment method.

We should not forget that a review & rating platform in Steem Blockchain is more transparent and genuine than a centralized platform, because of immutability, distributed ledger(visible to all). So it's a genuine use-case to create a niche to cater to the backpacker's community.

Thank you.

Cc:-
@steemitblog
@steemcurator01
@steemcurator02

Unless otherwise stated, all the images, infographics, charts, tables, etc(if any) are my original works.

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