Blockchain offers greater security and transparency for merchants, but it still has to overcome adoption issues. One promising solution is Solana Pay, which is a new payment solution that aims to bring Blockchain-based payments on-chain. I spoke with Enji, a developer for Solana Pay about the challenges of doing commerce in the crypto space.
We are hard at work at Solana tackling the enormous task of creating a blockchain that is fast enough to support real-world applications. While our Solana testnet is up and running, we’re getting closer every day to our goal of bringing commerce on-chain. In the meantime though, we want to introduce ourselves!
Summary about Bringing Commerce On-Chain With Solana Pay
Solana’s mission is to allow users to perform transactions on-chain without the high transaction costs or network latency issues that have plagued blockchain applications thus far. Solana accomplishes this by using a highly parallel structure to achieve performance at scale. This structure allows Solana to process up to 710,000 transactions per second with 99% of them being confirmed in 1 second or less.
There are two big reasons why Solana Pay is useful: security and convenience.
With the help of Solana Pay, you can rest assured that your information is kept safe because all payments are processed by Stripe, a well-trusted institution in the world of eCommerce. You can also use the Stripe dashboard to view your transaction history and statements.
Solana Pay helps you make purchases without having to give out any credit card or banking information. This makes buying from certain sites easier, because you don’t have to create an account or enter your personal information. All you need to do is start typing an email address or phone number, and Solana Pay will pull up a list of potential matches. If it finds one that works, click “Buy Now”, confirm the charge with one click, and that’s it!
Whatever time of year it is, you’re likely to find something on Solana Pay that will help you save money!
Now, Bringing crypto into the mainstream
Cryptocurrency is still a relatively new concept, and a lot of people don’t understand how it works. Some are intrigued by the idea, but don’t know where to start. Others have invested in crypto to make money, but want to learn more about what they’re investing in. And for those whose interest goes beyond just making money, there’s a real desire for crypto to become mainstream—to replace fiat currency and become the only type of money we use.
The thing is that crypto isn’t very accessible right now. There are several barriers that keep people from using it:
1) Cryptocurrency is mostly used online, so if you’re not on your laptop or phone all day, you can’t easily check out what’s going on in the crypto world.
2) There aren’t many brick-and-mortar businesses that accept cryptocurrency as payment. Even if you do use crypto to buy something online, chances are you have to go through a few steps before you can make the purchase: converting your cryptocurrency into fiat currency if the vendor doesn’t accept it directly; paying for a membership that allows you to exchange fiat for crypto; signing up for an exchange that lets you buy and sell crypto (and dealing with the headache of picking one and find.
Imagine if we could pay for things with the flick of a wrist. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but thanks to the advent and rise of blockchain technology, it’s quickly becoming a reality.
The cryptocurrency space is getting more and more interesting with each passing day, and there’s been a particular flurry of excitement in the past few weeks—specifically around Bitcoin Cash, an offshoot of Bitcoin. I’ve been following the news about this for a while now, and I’ve been seeing some really promising developments.
In case you’re not familiar with it, Bitcoin Cash is an altcoin that was created when some members of the Bitcoin community decided they wanted to change the way transactions were recorded on the blockchain. The main difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash is that Bitcoin Cash allows for 8MB blocks (as opposed to 1MB) to be mined every 10 minutes. This makes transactions cheaper and faster since there are more transactions that can be processed at once.
Now, imagine using this technology in real life. You could pay for your groceries by waving your hand at the cashier; you could pay parking meters with your phone; you could use it as proof of payment when you’re renting a car.
Start building with Solana Pay
Solana Pay is a payment gateway, which means that it allows businesses to accept payments online. If you run an eCommerce website, operate an online service, or offer products for sale on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, you may have been searching for a payment solution that fits your needs. You’ve come to the right place! Solana Pay has many features that will save you time and money, and we’ll go over them in this blog post.
Unlike most payment gateways, Solana Pay is free to use. That’s right. Free. It also doesn’t take long to set up – you can be ready to start accepting payments in about 10 minutes – and it has no monthly fees or contract commitments. Of course, there are still costs associated with online payments, but those are usually taken care of by the processor and are based on the number of transactions you receive rather than a flat fee per month.
One of the features we’re most excited about is our advanced fraud detection system. Some payment processors don’t check their customers’ websites very closely before they approve transactions (let alone check them after the account is opened), which can leave you vulnerable to fraudsters who try to buy items on your site without ever intending to actually pay.
Solana Pay is a payments service that makes it easy and secure for eCommerce businesses to accept credit cards and over 50 other payment types. We’ve had great success in the past two years, with thousands of business customers, hundreds of thousands of successful transactions, and millions of dollars processed.
However, if you’re looking to actually spend that money on something tangible, Venmo doesn’t have many options for you. For example, let’s say that I want to purchase a nice leather chair from an online furniture store—I’ll have to log into my bank account and transfer the money to the store owner’s bank account. This can sometimes take up to five business days in order for my bank to process it. The companies that handle this sort of thing are called payment processors, and up until now, this has been the sole domain of PayPal. But recently, there has been a new player in town: Solana Pay.