Real World Applications of Cryptocurrencies—Payment Systems

What are the real-life applications of Cryptocurrencies? How will these affect my everyday life? These are some of the questions I have received on social media and gatherings over the past few weeks. In order to answer these questions, I will be creating a series where I will be discussing how certain projects aim to disrupt and revolutionize specific industries. Payment Systems— Request Network (REQ) The current financial payment system has a number of drawbacks. However, modern life has evolved in such a way that it’s impossible to not use them daily. Some of the most important issues with the current system include: — In order to use the current payment systems (PayPal, Western Union, etc.) we need to provide our personal information (name, address, credit card details, etc.). Over the years, a number of these financial institutions have suffered compromising personal information. Security of personal information data breaches — Due to the centralized nature of our current financial payment system, companies can afford to get away with high fees. For example, PayPal charges the “seller” (in the US) and Visa charges an “interchange fee” of anywhere between 1.43% and 2.4%. Both buyers and sellers are impacted by this, as products need to be priced higher to cover these fees. Fees 2.9% plus $0.30 per sale — Tying into my previous point about personal information, these centralized financial institutions are well within their rights (as per their terms & conditions) to sell your habits and data. Selling of information Enter the , also featured in my previous post, , which you can find . Request Network (REQ) 3 Coins To Watch In 2018 here Request is a decentralized network that allows anyone to request a payment (a Request Invoice) for which the recipient can pay in a secure way. All of the information is stored in a decentralized authentic ledger. This results in cheaper, easier, and more secure payments, and it allows for a wide range of automation possibilities. REQ aims to solve the issues found in our current financial payment systems in the following ways: — Request doesn’t require you to share your banking information, therefore there is no risk of a malicious party intercepting and re-using this data. Taking an extract from REQ’s whitepaper: Secure For example, shopping on Amazon requires payment by credit/debit card, thereby exposing sensitive information. Alternatively, selecting the option to pay via Request, the users data remain protected. Amazon will post a Request on the network, the user’s account will detect it and request a confirmation of payment from the user. This will trigger a transfer at the lowest cost, without exposing the payment information. — Since there are no third-parties involved, costs are greatly reduced. The costs expected on the platform will be between 0.05% and 0.5% of the transaction. As volume of the network increases, in order for REQ to remain competitive, the cost will decrease. Cheap — It will allow payments in Ethereum, Bitcoin, ERC20 tokens and FIAT currencies. Flexible — The payment flow is more secure and more user-friendly. Simple One click to pay, and no manual input error possible. How are the REQ Tokens used? In order to make a transaction on the Request Network, the gateway will have to pay a fee (in the form of REQ tokens) which will be (or destroyed) in the process. This will confirm the success of the transaction. These fees will be adjusted over time depending on supply, exchange rate of supported currencies, etc. One thing to note, however, is that you to have REQ tokens; the necessary amount will be purchased (and burned) as part of the transaction. burned don’t necessarily need As an example, a request at the beginning of the system might burned 10 REQ out of the total supply of 1 000 000 000 REQ. Later, after the system has been used for a while, a Request might burn 0.0001REQ out of a total supply of 100 000 REQ. REQ doesn’t only focus on payment systems. It is building a were others can build applications in tandem with it. Additionally, it goes even further trying to improve other industries, including, , , , and more. I will be discussing these in future blog posts. payment platform invoicing audit & accounting internet of things You can purchase REQ on , and but to get a full list of exchanges that offer REQ check . Binance EtherDelta KuCoin here You can follow me on Twitter to keep up with the latest blog posts. @ermos_k _The latest Tweets from Ermos K (@ermos_k). Cryptocurrency Enthusiast circa 2012_twitter.com Ermos K (@ermos_k) | Twitter Mulled wine is out of season; Would you like to buy me a coffee instead? 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