2 years ago
Last month, I bought my teammate a rodent connected Amazon Singapore. He sent maine the link. I clicked “Buy Now.” The acquisition was automatically charged to my American recognition card, and the outgo was seamlessly converted from USD (U.S. dollars) to SGD (Singapore dollars). Best of all, the process took each of 30 seconds.
The hard portion came erstwhile helium paid maine back. “I’ll instrumentality currency oregon USDC-SOL,” I said.
Grace “Ori” Kwan is the cofounder of Orca, a decentralized speech connected Solana. This nonfiction is portion of CoinDesk’s Payments Week series.
Being colleagues astatine a decentralized concern (DeFi) startup, the second seemed similar the evident choice. With the super-speed and debased fees of Solana, it’d beryllium easy, right? If neither of america cared astir privacy, and the web was feeling cooperative that day, it could person been.
But here’s what the process looked like:
I opened my Solana wallet Phantom, generated a caller code and sent it implicit via Discord. He logged into the crypto speech FTX, exchanged immoderate SOL for USDC and “withdrew” $0.01 to my code for the customary trial transaction. FTX sent an email confirming that the withdrawal had been processed – but 15 minutes later, I inactive hadn’t received anything.
Maybe the web was backed up? Who knows. We went location for the day.
The adjacent day, my $0.01 had travel through. Hurray! He sent the remainder of the tokens, lone to recognize that he’d forgotten to relationship for the speech complaint betwixt Singapore dollars and USD (128 SGD = ~96 USD). No occupation – I could conscionable nonstop backmost the other to the aforesaid address, right? Wrong – since he’d sent it done a centralized exchange, the receiving code would beryllium different. Sigh.
By the clip we got the outgo sorted, the rodent ordered connected Amazon had already arrived.
We unrecorded successful a aureate property of capitalist convenience. Crypto is expected to beryllium the adjacent frontier. So wherefore are crypto payments truthful damn hard? And however mightiness we marque them better?
As an engineer-turned-designer, my reply is: human-centered design.
If you haven’t heard of human-centered design, oregon HCD, it’s a elemental concept: Observe the behaviors of your people users (aka existent humans), larn what they request and plan a merchandise that caters to those needs.
In contrast, galore crypto products clasp what 1 mightiness telephone technology-centered design: Observe immoderate underlying information and construe it straight arsenic imaginable into the idiosyncratic interface. If information is stored arsenic a array successful the database, show it arsenic a array successful the UI, for example.
Often, the effect of this tech-focused plan process is an interface that contains each the indispensable information, yet appears wholly unfamiliar to first-time users.
So are we conscionable talking astir caller interfaces? All caller interfaces – that’s innovation, right? Not quite. But alas, “new” does not mean “better,” astatine slightest erstwhile it comes to design. Web 2 giants person spent years designing, processing and battle-testing the easiest ways to nonstop wealth connected the web. If we anticipation to invitation the wider satellite into crypto, we indispensable connection experiences that are astatine slightest arsenic bully arsenic what’s already retired there.
In galore cases, that whitethorn mean black-boxing each the messy details that crypto apps permission bare for everyone to see.
Think of the past clip you made a payment. Who were you paying? The archetypal happening that comes to caput is apt a idiosyncratic oregon a business. It’s astir apt not a drawstring of seemingly random letters and numbers.
And yet, crypto wallets and exchanges are mostly address-centric. Sure, you tin prevention someone’s code successful astir wallets, but that’s the aforesaid mode my ma stored contacts backmost erstwhile each we had was a landline phone.
Web 2 solved this occupation agelong agone done societal profiles. In WeChat, I tin wage a person straight done the aforesaid interface we usage to chat. No request to scan a QR code, commercialized a telephone fig oregon inquire for immoderate different identification. And yet, successful Web 3, we’re stuck with the code book.
So, my arguable advice? Make Web 3 much similar Web 2.
“But no!” the crypto purists are definite to cry. For many, Web 3 means decentralization, which successful crook represents state from the ever-watching eyes of elephantine societal networks. By attempting to emulate the idiosyncratic acquisition of Web 2, wouldn’t we sacrifice those ideals?
Yes and no. In immoderate cases, users volition happily commercialized distant immoderate grade of anonymity successful speech for a amended idiosyncratic experience, which is simply a commercialized they should consciousness empowered to make. In different cases, the tradeoff itself is simply a fallacy: An acquisition much similar Web 2 tin beryllium achieved done decentralized means, specified arsenic the Ethereum Name Service. (Similarly, the tagline for the DeFi protocol I co-founded successful 2021 Orca is “The DEX for people, not programs.”)
For crypto payments to go mainstream, they indispensable connection further benefits without sacrificing bully design.
In this sense, caller approaches to on-chain payments look promising. Published images of Solana Pay diagnostic a acquainted QR code-based outgo interface. (Not my favourite outgo UI – tap-to-pay interfaces similar Suica and payWave triumph that contention – but astatine slightest there’s nary guessing however to usage it.)
The nonstop magnitude of payments and the individuality of payers are not publically viewable connected the blockchain, offering a grade of the privateness users people expect from a outgo platform.
Plus, it promises merchants little fees and caller approaches to physique loyalty with customers done non-fungible tokens (NFTs). However, the protocol has not yet been tested astatine scale, and the reliability of the web is inactive a concern. For Solana Pay to succeed, these caller features can’t travel astatine the outgo of the basics: security, reliability and simplicity.
The aureate property of payments is already here. Let’s not marque it harder.
English (US) 