I traced $1 from a US bank account to USDC on-chain: same architecture as the €1 journey, different legal foundations underneath every layer.
The $1 road and the €1 road are the same length. One is paved, but everyone in crypto uses the other.
The marketing version of a stablecoin on-ramp takes three seconds to explain. The plumbing version takes five layers of infrastructure, two different finality regimes, and a 1996 compliance rule that blockchain was never designed to satisfy. This is the plumbing version.
Stablecoins appear easy to monetise. They are not. This note looks at the few models that can scale sustainably.
The post analyses PIX the new Instant Payment schemes launched in Brasil: its main characteristics, success factors, and the impact that a widely adopted centralized instant payment scheme will have on the Brazilian financial ecosystem.
The goal of this post is to provide a guide on what buy now pay later is, which are its main dynamics, why it is so successful and how profitable it will stay in the longer run.
The post presents an analysis of Visa 2020 10K and uses it to give more context around Visa's history, growth opportunities and potential threats.