Friends, YARD team is on the line! We’re welcoming you to our blog as we begin a series of articles about our new payment solution.
The cryptocurrency payment market is one of the fastest-growing and actively evolving markets, according to estimates, The Global Cryptocurrency Payment Apps Market is at $541.34 million in 2022 and projected to reach $2.1 billion by 2030, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.52%. This is an insanely competitive market with hundreds of companies developing thousands of solutions.
So, why does the world need another payment protocol? Let’s try to figure that out!
First of all – why crypto?
- In recent years, the world has taken a significant step towards globalization, with remote work becoming the norm. According to international payroll platform DEEL, 5% of all salary payments are already happening in cryptocurrency, and 36% of employees are willing to receive their entire salary in crypto, with 44% willing to receive it partially.
- Due to COVID and the global economy, numerous businesses have suffered significant losses, leading to closures and downsizing. Governments had to implement loose monetary policies for an extended period, resulting in the highest inflation in the last decade. This inflation crisis has affected both developed and developing countries, causing their national currencies to significantly devalue against the US dollar.
- Increased global conflicts have also led to a significant rise in emigration, where newcomers often face challenges in accessing financial instruments, which can be extremely difficult, time-consuming, or even impossible.
Cryptocurrencies attract individual investors as well as institutions who can access financial instruments that are unavailable to them in traditional financial markets, and they can also provide higher returns.
All these factors have led to an explosive demand for cryptocurrencies and an increasing number of users in the crypto market. Currently, the number of cryptocurrency users is estimated at 420 million, with a projected growth to 1 billion by 2027. The market itself is also growing rapidly, with an expected CAGR 2023-2027 of 14.40%, resulting in a projected total market value of $64.9 billion by 2027.
Alongside the user base growth, the adoption and use of cryptocurrencies are also booming. According to research conducted by Binance in 2021, cryptocurrencies are actively used (besides HODLing) by 38% of users, including 11% who use them as a payment method. The overall adoption index has grown by 880% over the year 21/22.
Problem statement.
However, there’s a spoon full of tar in a barrel of honey. Despite the market boom, there are several reasons preventing or significantly slowing the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies as means of payment.
These reasons include:
- Legal uncertainty: Cryptocurrencies are fully legal in only 20 countries, while they are prohibited (partially or entirely) or lack legislative frameworks in the rest of the world.
- Potential illicit use: Due to anonymity and the relative complexity (or impossibility in certain blockchains like Monero) of transaction tracking, cryptocurrencies can be and have been used for illegal activities such as money laundering or financing terrorism.
- High risks of loss or theft: The specific nature of cryptocurrencies, including decentralization, anonymity, and lack of trust in individual parties, can result in the loss or theft of funds due to compromised or lost private keys.
- Volatility: The price fluctuations of cryptocurrencies can reach dozens of percents within minutes, making it challenging to use them, except for stablecoins, as a stable medium of exchange for goods or services.
- Technological novelty: The current technology does not yet allow cryptocurrencies to compete with traditional payment systems in terms of transaction processing speed.
- Insufficient standardization: With approximately 150 fiat currencies in the world and over 26,000 cryptocurrencies, the absence of central banks controlling issuance creates a significant problem in terms of standardization and compatibility among different cryptocurrency payment systems.
But besides these legal and technological factors, the adoption of cryptocurrency in everyday life, commerce, services, etc. is also influenced by the complexity of the technology itself. Try sending cryptos to your mother or grandmother and see if they can use it 😉 Cryptocurrency differs greatly from familiar fiat money with seed phrases, fees, mempools, contracts, different addresses in different chains for a single recipient and so on. It’s hard for someone not familiar with the technology to understand how to handle crypto.
At YARD, we tackle all the mentioned problems in one way or another, but first of all we’re here to allow everyone to send funds to their contacts in cryptocurrency anywhere in the world quickly, anonymously, securely, and with maximum simplicity!
Additionally, we believe our solution will contribute to the growth of global financial service accessibility. Just imagine, according to various data, currently 1.4 to 2 billion people worldwide, approximately 20-25% of the total population, don’t have access to banking services! In developing countries, this percentage can be much higher, for example, in Nigeria, over 40 million people or about 36% of the population don’t have access to banking services due to various reasons like lack of identification documents or credit ratings. Cryptocurrencies can “bank” all these people!
How will we do it? Meet YARD
What can be the simplest identifier that almost everyone has? A phone number! According to statistics, 5.44 billion people worldwide, or 68% of the population above 10 years old, have mobile phones. For example, in Nigeria, the percentage is even higher, reaching 87.7% or 193 million people (just compare this with 64% of bank service users!). So, by being able to send crypto simply by phone number, we potentially reach two-thirds of the world’s population!
Now, we can finally talk about YARD! It’s a crypto payment suite designed to help web3 developers to boost revenue and user engagement with minimal effort in no time. Primarily, YARD functions as a transport layer, converting any recipient user identifier (credential) the sender knows, whether it’s a phone number, email address, or Telegram login, into a blockchain address where cryptocurrency can be sent. It doesn’t matter if the recipient is registered with the service; they can always access the funds by verifying ownership of the identifier to which the funds were sent. After verification, the cryptocurrency can be withdrawn to any user wallet.
YARD solves several crypto-native issues:
- No experience with cryptocurrencies is needed to use YARD; it suits both experienced users and complete beginners.
- Regardless of the wallets, exchanges, and other services you use, your address book is always synchronized with YARD.
- YARD is blockchain agnostic; if the coin is supported by the service, the recipient can access the funds even if they didn’t have an address in that blockchain.
- YARD provides an additional layer of privacy for users who don’t want their personal addresses known to their counterparts.
Interested in learning more details and seeing YARD in action? Hit the button below or shoot us a message at [email protected].