This is awesome.
May I suggest though that rather than doing the obvious and integrate the USD, you initially focus on lower ranked economies and nations. New economies like Steem have the potential to massively disrupt the status quo and directly improve social vertical mobility.
There is a reason why there are so many mobile payment apps in the Asian scene (and Africa): the unbanked demographic is massive. While we still suffer the inconvenience that most debit card issuers have pulled out, it is more likely that affluent users are capable to easily exchange without going through many expensive hoops.
For the unbanked demographic this is often an expensive chore tho. I know for example that in the Philippines there are people who are not capable of withdrawing their crypto without paying expensive Western Union/Remittance cash out fees. Alternatively they must travel for hours to use one of the few BTC ATMs. IDs are still expensive and not everyone has one thus excluding options like the otherwise excellent Coins.ph which serves many locals already but has KYC/AML and thus requires ID verification.
Same situation in Indonesia and I bet Nigeria, Kenya, Venezuela, and Brazil are not different. Something tells me that those local scenes, most of which have also setup their own communities on Steem, will find ways to propagate the use of a Steem payment platform and grow faster than USA adoption. If not faster in number most likely definitely much more in local importance, in social vertical mobility.
From a 2014 CoinDesk interview with Ron Hose, Co-Founder of Coins.ph:
“In contrast to developed countries, where bitcoins as a payment method are more of a novelty - here it is serving a real problem. For instance, credit card penetration in the Philippines is 3%. Only three out of 100 customers that land on an e-commerce site have an immediate way to pay for it."
Disclosure: I’m a European living in PH.. The PH community here on Steem is very active, although by long not as large as the KR community, but I’m not active in the scene myself. My personal focus is mostly on convincing local store owners, especially sari-sari stores to start accepting crypto. Many are eager but lacking flawless methods don’t help (and coins.ph is mostly focus on signing up franchises and restaurants for faster expansion).
Really appreciate your comment. All sounds quite interesting. Btw how this tool would be useful in developing countries if they have not easy way to cashout STEEM? In Korea, there are exchanges called Upbit and Gopaxnand you can cash out SBD easily. In US, they can sell SBD for BTC and then cashout. What is it like in Phillipine? Would they do the same?
What would be the best way to convert local currency to SBD in PH? Would it involve USD conversion anyway?
Store owners are more likely to have both ID and also bank account.
For the unbanked the reality is that both cost (opening a bank account requires a deposit of $10-$40 depending on the bank).
Surprisingly mobile wallets are huge (especially send money via SMS from prepaid load or postpaid). Internet is also cheap and so are smartphones. There’s a hands down culture, when I get a new contract phone my old goes to a family member of my partner.
The beauty of Steem is that Steem can provide a new revenue stream requiring nothing of what we needed before (PayPal requires credit card or bank account). As such even those without ID/bank account can actively earn with Steem and then spend their money. The store operator then exchanges and withdraws local fiat.
This is why Ron Hose’s quote is so important: cryptoes solve an actual need. Especially unique platforms like Steem. Queue Dan’s legendary new economy post: give people a place to both earn and spend.
Btw especially in the Philippines this is now a real future since cryptoes are accepted and each local exchange requires accreditation by the local central Bank - last December more than 20 applications had been submitted already and Coins.ph already have the beta for their exchange up. Closed beta still for now. There is no doubt that the second biggest player, SCI.ph, will soon follow as well.
But in countries like Venezuela this is a big thing as well.
Here’s an additional thought: At worst/best you could simply provide a manual with the instruction where to change the api for currency line. In an initial model that seems great already if using CoinGecko. A call to community should soon see many new pull requests with expansions both for new currencies and also exchanges IMHO.
Addendum: until now will use Bittrex and convert to BTC. From there Coins.ph/Bitbit by SCI.ph/BTC ATM/ask a friend (many used Poloniex before because of lower BTC transfer fee option, $5/10 loss is a lot for small earners).
this is so inspiring. Many thanks. As now I am at work and having a busy day but I will come back to this discussion and have more thought. You seem to be a great advisor for the south asian culture and economic status. Due to my job and the other personal projects I have been barely spending my hours on SteemPay recently. But I will com back to this as quickly as possible!
Which country in Europe are you originally from? I live in the UK.
I’m originally from Belgium but have travelled Europe, having lived also in The Netherlands, Germany, France, the UK, and eventually Cyprus before moving to South-East Asia.
Thanks for the kind words. Moving over here was an eye opener and absolutely interesting as well to discover how worlds are different and people need totally different solutions. I have als been very active in the local startup scene for a while some years ago when there was some traction around it.
The truth is that economic hardship drives creative innovation. If the deprived can find new ways to make money, they will jump on it and make it. The need for food and electricity is a massive creative inspiration for disruption.
Much later, First World will often make the solutions mainstream. Usually without credit for they who started it, obviously.
Did you know that both Africa and SEAsia are world leaders in mobile payments? Almost each telco provides mobile wallets, both via SMS and apps. Your phone number becomes a wallet. Imagine if we can expand that to cryptoes, at least some which people have true access to and have a backing system which is optimized for micro-payments. With no fees and fast transactions. #WIN
@fknmayhem, I updated SteemPay with more currencies including PHP and MYR as you suggested.
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@asbear/steempay-0-3-0-release-supporting-seven-more-currencies-usd-eur-gbp-jpy-cny-php-myr
I put large amount of SBD to promote this post to get noticed by the Steemians like you who see the potential of SBD payment, but not sure how to get attention from the Philippine community though.
I noticed the update before I noticed the mention.
Thanks for the update. I like the solution used via CMC. Let me try to forward as much as I can.
Pinging @surpassinggoogle to this comment and also forwarding him the update via DM.
PS: Never use bidbots on Utopian submissions. Not only do you lose beneficiary but the Utopian bot also rewards less.