How can we get businesses to accept STEEM as payment?

This is my entry into the Steemitblog Challenge #1 (September 28th - October 4th).

#steemcryptochallenge

My country is #usa

Key to mass adoption is ease of use

The idea is not new, and while many or perhaps most of us are focusing on earning more cryptocurrency, perhaps we should instead make it our passion to focus on mass adoption through utility. Personally, the most important thing to me to drive adoption of a cryptocurrency is ease of use and utility. I honestly feel cryptocurrency is very complicated and once you do all the work of figuring it out and accumulating a fair bit of it, you find you can’t buy anything with it.

That’s why most crypto millionaire stories end in “ I cashed out my tokens to USD and lived happily ever after”. Because most people are not able to buy the stuff they need with their crypto. Now while there are examples of projects where you can use Bitcoin to buy everything like the South Brisbane Airport, these are limited in scope as we can’t all go shopping in Brisbane. We need something with universal appeal.

Keep it easy and make it look familiar

However as I survey the landscape of programs to increase mass adoption I see various ideas and programs of varying complexity. I like many of them, but realistically speaking people tend to follow the easy path of least resistance, so familiarity is key and easy is a must. So I created a hypothesis, that I should see if programs focused on ease of use and familiarity were popular and profitable. So I did an internet search and sorted through several articles, websites and to my surprise gift cards and debit cards are a very popular way to spend cryptocurrency.

Gift cards and Debit cards

Apparently these programs like gift card purchases with crypto or crypto debit cards where you deposit or load the card with crypto and then use it to pay in USD or Euros are very popular and profitable. They are like credit cards, so they are familiar!and they have the ease of use of credit cards, and apparently most of the world is familiar with them. In fact as I researched them I found they have many features I might not think of as an American, but are very useful in other parts of the world. You can use them to add minutes to your cellphone plan, pay utility bills like water and electric, and you can make online gaming purchases for video games.

Most businesses accept credit cards and debit cards, many accept gift cards.

It’s money, so businesses know how to accept it

Those programs have high utility and high ease of use. Businesses don’t have to do anything except accept gift cards, credit or debit cards. These are very common forms of payment with well worn paths to follow. They allow people to use something just like a credit card or bank debit card, so the majority of people know how to use it and the majority of businesses know how to accept it. They can trade it for stuff they need like food, water, electricity, pay bills or buy gadgets. I think these are the most important barriers to entry; ease of use and utility.

Our Competition

Right now there are new companies out there building on this business model using Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dash. But to me we have an advantage over all these coins; zero transaction fees. That’s right, here on Steem we don’t even think about the cost of sending someone Steem because there are no transaction fees, because there are no miners. Thus unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum where it costs 10-25 USD to send someone money, on our blockchain it’s FREE.

Transaction Fees

All the coins used a lot for commercial transactions and transferring wealth right now, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash have one important thing in common: Transaction Fees. These fees are a very important issue because they represent transaction costs which reduce profits. The funny thing about being in the Steem blockchain is that because our transactions are free, we don’t think about transaction costs and we don’t see what a big plus this is for Steem.

Free is an amazing word, it excites interest where none was before...

Imagine you are trying to convince someone to sign up for your phone service and leave the one they were with for five years. You need to remember your not selling a cheaper service, your selling Free service. I think we don’t exploit this because we don’t think about it.

How do we offer this service?

First,
This can be accomplished by writing the administration of a company called Cryptofills. Cryptofills allows people to use their Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to buy real-world goods and services. Just follow these simple steps. Cryptorefills supports 100's of Gift Cardss, Vouchers and top ups in 180 Countries with over 600 Mobile Operators. Cryptorefills claims to offer competitive prices for products including Steam Vouchers, Amazon Gift Cards and top ups for networks including Vodafone, Lyca Mobile, Airtel and many more. learn more

Second,
We start giving these cards away to people in the cryptocurrency space. Their are thousands, if not millions of people involved with cryptocurrency all over the world. We need to market the product with contests and giveaways. I have other ideas, but it starts with making the card service available, then encourage people here to use it, then other cryptocurrency people to use it and eventually non-cryptocurrency people to use it, at least initially. Once people find out they can write articles, earn Steem, transfer it to their debit card and pay their electric bill or buy someone they love a nice dinner in a restaraunt, the sky’s the limit.

Lets do this.

@shortsegments

The Beautiful Graphic below was created by @stephenkendal for this contest and given by him to all to use!

Source

This pretty graphic was made by @steemitblog for the October Announcement Post

Tags:

#usa #steemcryptochallenge

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