When Satoshi Nakamoto published the whitepaper for Bitcoin, his vision was simple: to create a form of electronic cash that could be used to send payments without the involvement of a bank.
Few could have predicted how popular the cryptocurrency would end up being – let alone its impressive market cap of $ 635 billion. Bitcoin’s success, however, largely depends on how often this digital asset is bought and kept for speculation. According to a recent Binance survey, only 11% of those who own crypto use it to make payments.
Amazon and eBay have shown little interest in introducing support for digital assets. This would allow millions of users to freely spend their crypto. A longstanding irony is how you can buy pro bitcoin shirts on either platform … but only in cash.
Waiting for these ecommerce titans to embrace crypto may also not be the best approach. Bitcoin has been around for more than a decade, ether was first introduced in 2015, and thousands of altcoins have followed in their footsteps. Smaller independent retailers have begun to allow critical coins to be used for retail therapy. However, many of these distributors are based in niche areas and have a limited range of products.
As a result, there is a growing consensus that the crypto sector should develop its own response to Amazon and eBay. The benefits go beyond ensuring that digital assets can finally be used for their intended purpose. This initiative prevents capital from flowing to tech titans who are already making billions in profits every quarter. Better still, it can also lead to a more equitable ecosystem – one where small businesses selling their goods pay lower fees and protect their paper-thin profit margins.
Financial freedom? Don’t rely on it
For the ecommerce startups building crypto-focused platforms, it’s not just about making it easy to buy a pair of sneakers with Bitcoin. It’s about delivering real financial inclusion for everyone – and delivering blockchain technology to millions of people.
Currently, if you want to buy something on Amazon or eBay, you need a debit card – and that is where you need a bank account. That is little consolation for the hundreds of millions of people who do not have access to these financial services. Getting a credit card poses even more of a hurdle as you need to prove that you have stable income and meet a bank’s strict lending criteria. And while prepaid cards that can be topped up with cash are available, they often incur sky-high transaction fees.
All of this has contributed to a world where it is next to impossible to make purchases without the involvement of a bank. And while cryptocurrencies can be converted to fiat for e-commerce purchases, the process can be cumbersome and time-consuming.
The alternative
DeFi For You is positioning itself as the crypto industry’s answer to Amazon and eBay. The platform is designed to support small and medium-sized businesses by allowing them to sell their products in exchange for digital assets.
In addition to democratizing the retail world, the company has bold ambitions to shake up the lending world by allowing anyone to set up their own pawn shops and issue short-term loans secured by smart contracts. By using blockchain technology, someone can prove over time that they are trustworthy and access preferred loan terms – without having to meet the strict criteria of a bank.
With DeFi For You, users become their own bank – and have the opportunity to start their own business.
In a recent AMA meeting with Cointelegraph, Adam C. Chaplin, CEO of DeFi For You said he was inspired by a documentary about a pawn shop in Marbella that specializes in enabling wealthy people to use their luxuries as collateral – in order to serve high net worth individuals from time to time encounter cash flow problems.
“We’re helping the non-banks, we’re helping the upper end of the market, we can literally open this up to millions of people – and microloans are big too,” said Chaplin.
There’s one hurdle that may have kept Amazon and eBay from accepting crypto: scalability concerns. The Ethereum blockchain has become immensely popular with DeFi protocols over the past 12 months, but all of these congestion has resulted in the network creaking under the pressure. DeFi For You has responded and opted for the Binance Smart Chain, which offers faster speeds and lower costs thanks to a blocking time of between three and five seconds.
DeFi For You is offering a 24-hour DeFi Initial Offer for the Binance Smart Chain starting on January 31st at 10 p.m. UTC.
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