Considering that the scale we’re talking about probably involves reaching out to non-crypto people, I feel like my question isn’t too basic given that premise:
How fast/cheap is “making a crypto transaction” currently? I’ve heard bad things about how expensive it is but have no idea if that’s actually true.
I’m no expert on Cardano or Solana, but I think both offer considerably faster/cheaper transactions than we came to expect in crypto’s earlier days. Hope this helps 😃
P.S. one of my personal dreams is to create a dashboard of GLO usage that will make this info easier to find than it currently is. When I researched this a bit I found a bunch of stuff from explicit boosters that had a very sales-y tone but no actual data, and then a bunch of pessimistic stuff from naysayers that also had, you guessed it, no data. Blargh
So this is one of those questions that’s good precisely because it’s deceptively difficult to answer. Here are some possibilities.
If the car merchant accepts GLO, then it should be basically instantaneous. Medium-run, this is our goal.
If you need to convert to USD first, you will go through a crypto exchange that supports GLO.
Just as a reference point, Coinbase says that selling digital tokens through PayPal will be instantaneous but depositing money into a bank will take 3-5 days. I think other exchanges will be similar, but Coinbases’s is just what I found online right now.
I asked our CTO about this and he suggested that ideally, someone would build the following GLO-compatible businesses:
(1) a super simple business that allows you as an individual consumer to buy GLO and sell it back to $whateveryourcurrencyis$ in $whateveryourcountryis$ ==> this allows this business to buy GLO from us, without us needing to maintain this consumer relationship
a more elaborate bank-like business that uses GLO as the money layer. They could issue a credit or debit card for consumers in whatever region they’re active in. This again abstracts the individual relationship away and creates a better experience for a wider set of people using GLO
But these ideas are hypotheticals right now. (We’ve also made a note to flesh these ideas out into a ‘request for startups’ 😃)
As you say elsewhere, when we launch, we won’t be expecting folks to put money that they actually need to spend into GLO, because in our early phases, spending GLO on essentials will be harder than spending fiat (re: potentially impossible) .
So, bottom line: it depends on whether you’re spending at a ‘participating merchant’ or not, and at what point in the development of the GLO ecosystem we’re at.
It does… Creating the mechanisms to eliminate friction on the user end is likely to be key to enabling your early supporters to maximize the degree to which they can help the project. I would love to have nothing but a hundred or so bucks in my checking account and the rest of my easily available money in GLO,but then I would need to know that I could immediately redeem. Have you thought about doing something with Zelle to facilitate immediate redemption?
FTX and Binance have credit cards that could let you hold GLO and convert it in USD at the moment you buy something (like a car). If GLO get’s listed on those platforms you should be able to pay with GLO instantly using a mastercard or similar from those platforms.
Considering that the scale we’re talking about probably involves reaching out to non-crypto people, I feel like my question isn’t too basic given that premise:
How fast/cheap is “making a crypto transaction” currently? I’ve heard bad things about how expensive it is but have no idea if that’s actually true.
👋
in general, it depends on which crypto network you’re using.
GLO will deploy on Polygon, where transaction fees should be 5 cents maximum (in practice usually less than 1 cent per transaction), and we expect the network to handle about 7,000 transactions per second.
Is a little more expensive (on both fronts) in Ethereum (but that should change soon), and a transaction on the bitcoin lightning network should also be much faster than bitcoin used to be.
I’m no expert on Cardano or Solana, but I think both offer considerably faster/cheaper transactions than we came to expect in crypto’s earlier days. Hope this helps 😃
P.S. one of my personal dreams is to create a dashboard of GLO usage that will make this info easier to find than it currently is. When I researched this a bit I found a bunch of stuff from explicit boosters that had a very sales-y tone but no actual data, and then a bunch of pessimistic stuff from naysayers that also had, you guessed it, no data. Blargh
EDIT: bitcoin link fixed
So, if I have 20k in GLO, and I want cash to buy a car, how long before that 20k in GLO is $20K USD?
So this is one of those questions that’s good precisely because it’s deceptively difficult to answer. Here are some possibilities.
If the car merchant accepts GLO, then it should be basically instantaneous. Medium-run, this is our goal.
If you need to convert to USD first, you will go through a crypto exchange that supports GLO.
Just as a reference point, Coinbase says that selling digital tokens through PayPal will be instantaneous but depositing money into a bank will take 3-5 days. I think other exchanges will be similar, but Coinbases’s is just what I found online right now.
I asked our CTO about this and he suggested that ideally, someone would build the following GLO-compatible businesses:
(1) a super simple business that allows you as an individual consumer to buy GLO and sell it back to $whateveryourcurrencyis$ in $whateveryourcountryis$ ==> this allows this business to buy GLO from us, without us needing to maintain this consumer relationship
a more elaborate bank-like business that uses GLO as the money layer. They could issue a credit or debit card for consumers in whatever region they’re active in. This again abstracts the individual relationship away and creates a better experience for a wider set of people using GLO
But these ideas are hypotheticals right now. (We’ve also made a note to flesh these ideas out into a ‘request for startups’ 😃)
As you say elsewhere, when we launch, we won’t be expecting folks to put money that they actually need to spend into GLO, because in our early phases, spending GLO on essentials will be harder than spending fiat (re: potentially impossible) .
So, bottom line: it depends on whether you’re spending at a ‘participating merchant’ or not, and at what point in the development of the GLO ecosystem we’re at.
Hope this helps!
It does… Creating the mechanisms to eliminate friction on the user end is likely to be key to enabling your early supporters to maximize the degree to which they can help the project. I would love to have nothing but a hundred or so bucks in my checking account and the rest of my easily available money in GLO,but then I would need to know that I could immediately redeem. Have you thought about doing something with Zelle to facilitate immediate redemption?
Yes, we’ll definitely be looking into partnering with digital payment networks.
FTX and Binance have credit cards that could let you hold GLO and convert it in USD at the moment you buy something (like a car). If GLO get’s listed on those platforms you should be able to pay with GLO instantly using a mastercard or similar from those platforms.