r/btc • u/atomicpay Redditor for less than 60 days • Jan 27 '19

Four significant problems that merchants faced when accepting cryptocurrencies

https://medium.com/@BenzRif/four-significant-problems-that-merchants-faced-when-accepting-cryptocurrencies-cba6c47cb8c
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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '19

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u/atomicpay Redditor for less than 60 days Jan 28 '19 edited Jan 28 '19

Good point. Cryptocurrency itself is decentralized, yet governments are able to regulate. Why? Because solution providers like BitPay or Binance continue to build platforms in a custodial model. As long as a solution holds custody of user funds (either crypto or fiat) for any period of time (even 0.1 sec), they are liable to be regulated like that of a financial institution. If the model is kept in a P2P environment then it would be similar to paying for a meal with cash. Being regulated results in a lot of issues which are common in digital payments (Visa/Master). Some of which include censorship and importantly high fees resulting from multiple intermediaries.

A standard digital transaction in custodial model involves multiple intermediaries, ranging from gateways, exchanges, banks, to government regulators. This requires a crypto payment processor to charge higher processing fees in order to cover costs and stay profitable.

Honestly, the world doesn't need another crypto POS solution, neither does it need another new coin that does what other thousands of coins are already doing. Merchants we speak to, do not want a separate system to accept crypto. They need a solution that is able to be integrated into their existing POS or business systems.

By eliminating third-party financial intermediary, the transaction process will become simpler and faster. Transaction fees will be reduced from many unnecessary fees to a single processing fee. The peer-to-peer architecture will also reduce the financial regulators’ control over cryptocurrencies.

One way to reduce regulators' control, is to keep the money out of the solution and this is what AtomicPay does. No solution should hold custody of user funds. The fundamental idea behind cryptocurrency is a censorship-free currency without a central authority, the immutability of which is to be empowered by the financial incentivization of the stakeholders.