The Problem We Were Actually Solving
For years, digital creators from countries like Nigeria, Pakistan, Ghana, and Bangladesh have been locked out of platforms like PayPal, Stripe, and even our own platform, due to regulatory hurdles and fees that make it prohibitively expensive to do business with them. This isn't just a problem for these creators - it's also a problem for our users who want to support them, because we can't accept payments from them. The result is a vicious cycle of exclusion, where the very platforms that are supposed to empower these creators end up stifling their growth.
What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)
Initially, we tried using PayPal's crypto onramp to enable payments for our users in these countries. The idea was simple: users could buy cryptocurrency on PayPal and then use it to pay our creators. Sounds great, right? Except that PayPal's fees for buying crypto were astronomical - up to 10% in some cases - and the exchange rate was so unfavorable that it would have cost our users an additional 20% on top of that just to send money to our creators. And if that wasn't enough, PayPal's onboarding process for merchants in these countries was notoriously slow and bureaucratic, meaning that we would have had to wait months to get set up.
The Architecture Decision
So we decided to take matters into our own hands and build our own crypto payment system from scratch. It wasn't an easy decision - it would require us to set up our own wallets, develop our own onboarding process, and even create our own API for integrating with our platform. But the alternative was unacceptable: continuing to exclude our users in developing countries from our platform. We chose to use the Cosmos SDK to build our blockchain-based payment system, which would allow us to create custom tokens for our creators and users, as well as integrate with our existing platform.
What The Numbers Said After
The results have been nothing short of astonishing. By building our own payment system, we were able to reduce fees for our users by up to 90% compared to using PayPal's crypto onramp. We also saw a significant increase in payment volumes, as our users in developing countries were finally able to monetize their work. And as for the onboarding process? It took us just 6 weeks to set up our new payment system, compared to the 6 months it would have taken us to get set up with PayPal.
What I Would Do Differently
In hindsight, I would have done a few things differently. For one, I would have invested more time and resources in building a more robust and user-friendly onboarding process for our creators. As it stands, our onboarding process is still a bit clunky, and we've had some issues with users being unable to access their funds. I would also have explored alternative blockchain solutions, such as Polkadot or Solana, that might have offered more flexibility and scalability for our payment system. But overall, I'm proud of what we've accomplished, and I'm confident that our new payment system will continue to empower digital creators in developing countries for years to come.
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