The Rise of Digital Currency and Internet Commerce

Author: Utrust

Compiled by: ChainCatcher

Have you ever considered why we use dollars, euros, or any other fiat currency for online shopping? After all, these are simulated currencies. Their fiat currencies were originally made of gold or paper. As the world becomes digital, why do we continue to use certain digital versions of the same thing?

Why do you accept all the rules invented by various countries to ensure the safety of their currency reserves and the strength of fiat currencies when shopping online? Your payment is transmitted as 1s and 0s through wires. It’s an electrical pulse. Why would you commit to paying an exchange rate for money that will never leave the internet? Why would you pay cross-border fees to companies whose servers may not be in the same country/region? What crosses what border?

Fiat currencies were designed long before e-commerce was even a wild dream of humanity. Since the existence of the internet, people have been trying to design forms of currency compatible with the functionalities that the internet offers, ensuring secure and seamless transactions without the need for intermediaries that have existed since the First Opium War.

Now, we actually have them. We love them dearly.

There are many reasons why digital currencies and blockchain-driven solutions are well-suited for internet commerce. The first reason is security.

One of the dramatic events in online shopping is that credit cards were not born for the internet. Attempts to create credit cards date back a long time. The first mention of something similar was in the 19th century. By 1958, they were real. BankAmericard may have been the first to operate in a way very similar to today’s models.

This is technology from 60 years ago that we are talking about here.

If you want to use your credit card online, you have to share your personal information over the internet. There are no two ways about it. Even if you use a service like PayPal (which will be detailed later) to protect you, it still has to exist.

Not with digital currency.

Then there’s everything blockchain can do for you. By ensuring the security and transparency of all transactions through technology, we have almost completely eliminated intermediaries. No banks, no agents, nothing. This means no wire transfer fees, no transit fees, no exchange rates, and no ridiculous fees implied by traditional payments. Better yet: because there’s no need for banks to hold your hand, transfers are incredibly fast.

Mainstream adoption takes time to become a global story, but we are there. As of February, the estimated number of wallets in use has surpassed 100 million for the first time. This feels like a symbolic watershed moment, but it’s not the only indicator of true adoption. E-commerce is a better metric.

This is why the Tesla news is so significant.

Tesla is the most valuable car manufacturer in the world, with revenues of $35 billion in 2020. They now accept Bitcoin as a payment method. But they are far from the only ones. From Burger King to Wikipedia, from Microsoft to alternative airlines, anyone has started accepting digital currencies as a payment method.

But it’s not just select brands. By 2025, the use of digital currencies in e-commerce is expected to have an average compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35%.

Traditional companies are catching up. Remember PayPal? They want to join the future too. The Chinese government feels the same way. Banks are a bit late to the party, but they are coming too.

The lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is yet to be determined. The future is unpredictable. However, studying trends is possible. Most people who pay attention to these trends agree on the permanence of certain changes brought about by the pandemic. One is remote work. Another is e-commerce. Clearly, physical stores will rebound as lockdowns lift and health risks diminish, but no one expects e-commerce levels to fall back to pre-pandemic levels.

This is how we shop now.

This is why companies like PayPal and governments like China are investing in digital currencies. Once you understand the capabilities of this technology, you immediately realize that fiat currencies and traditional banking systems cannot compete on the internet.

What can we say… we saw it coming.

We are internet natives, and we launched our digital currency payment platform in 2019. We understand this technology, so we knew it had to happen. We know that if people are to adopt these currencies on a large scale as a replacement for fiat currencies, it’s best to have a seamless, secure, efficient, fast, and always-available platform for them to actually make payments.

That’s Utrust.

That’s why Utrust exists.

We are the bridge between internet-native currency and everything you can think of buying. This is the money of the future, and we are bringing it to you now.