Author: Brother Future
In 2020, BTC, which uses the blockchain as the underlying technology, will be favored by traditional institutions with a sense of breakthrough due to its attributes of digital gold in the field of value storage and its flexible use characteristics. And it has been gradually verified by time, and it is believed that BTC will be further recognized globally. In the hotspot analysis in July 2020, five types of hotspots (ETH, Shelley (ADA), SOV (Algo), AR, Fil, etc.) also produced a value increase of 2-10 times the market value. Defi hotspots suddenly hit around August, also benefiting from the continuous increase of USDT and the increased attention and quantitative easing brought by BTC institutional bulls. Personally, I would like to remind ordinary investors to be cautious in participating in Defi and earth mining projects, because it seems that there are more runaway projects in DeFi than conscientious projects. Readers must have their own research and judgment, and don't blindly trust anyone's analysis and ideas.
I personally think that the hot spots in 2021 should focus on the following points:
Whether the latest proposal of BTC Bitcoin ETF can be reviewed and approved by the US SEC; traditional financial institutions will enter the market after the market stabilizes
Further application of blockchain technology in the payment field (CBDC, Paypal, Bitpay, Alchemy, LTC, etc.)
Further cooperation and expansion of large-scale compliance projects: USDC, Algorand, ETH 2.0 continuous transition, etc.
The operation and development of Polkadot's series of card slot parallel chains continue to attract industry attention
Further expanded application of Defi category - growth opportunities, risks and default leverage coexist, need to be cautious
The freshness and gameplay innovation brought by NFT hotspots (be careful of excessive bubbles)
Unpredictable WSB-like style, playing cards not according to the routine, ambush ahead of time, and suddenly call a single class
In addition to stored-value applications in 2021-2022, blockchain technology will also be a key field in the payment field where a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend. Some applications have payment attributes themselves, such as BTC, LTC, BCH, and USDC. The type is to provide payment system bridge functions, such as Bitpay, Alchemy, some are public chain ecology, but they have fast processing capabilities and provide development ecological platforms, such as ETH 2.0, Algo, this article will briefly analyze several types that can be used in blockchain payment and The value and difference of settlement applications. BTC is not recorded in this article, the main reason is that individuals prefer BTC as a large amount of gold storage option.
1. Litecoin（LTC）
Category: asset class attributes + merchants in some countries accept payment
Introduction: The main difference between LTC and BTC is: 1. Block generation speed: about 2.5 minutes (10 minutes for BTC), so it can provide faster transaction confirmation. 2. The total amount of Litecoin is set at 84 million, and the market value is about 8 billion US dollars. 3. After halving in 2019, the current block reward is 12.5 LTC, the circulation rate is about 80%, and the mining expansion rate is about 3.96%, which is at a relatively low inflation rate level. 4. The algorithm used by the consensus mechanism PoW of LTC isscryptEncryption algorithm, compared to BTC, it was easier to mine LTC on ordinary computers before ASIC mining machines appeared.
Application prospects in payment: Merchants who support cryptocurrencies will generally support LTC, mainly because of the large speed and popularization of LTC, and after the bull market sell-off in 2017, the degree of centralization of LTC is relatively low. More flexible at the payment level.
However, Litecoin’s actual daily transaction transfer volume is still at a relatively low level compared to BTC and other digital currencies. Currently, there are about 50,000 to 70,000 transactions per day, and the active addresses fluctuate around 150,000.
Official website:
Official website:https://litecoin.org/
Basic data:https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/litecoin/
2. Bitcoin Cash (BCH)Category: asset class attributes + merchants in some countries accept payment
Introduction: The concept of BCH was first proposed by Bitmain, a leading mining machine company in the industry, to expand the capacity of Bitcoin. The generation of BCH digital currency originated from the hard fork of BTC on August 1, 2017. BCH currently on the market is here After that, it experienced two hard forks in 2018 and 2020. The block size of Bitcoin Cash will be expanded to 32MB by 2020. Some people think that adding SegWit to Bitcoin after Bitcoin Core is not the original design intention of Bitcoin. Compared with BTC, BCH is more centralized, and the total amount is consistent with BTC. It is also a PoW mechanism, mining output, and current block rewards 6.25, the circulation is about 1,867,656 pieces, and the circulation rate is about 88%. The average daily transaction of BCH is about 200,000, and the active addresses fluctuate around 60,000-100,000.
BCH core holder Roger Ver often spreads the potential of BCH in the payment field on Twitter, and demonstrates value transfer rewards through the Bitcoin.com website wallet and the instant value transfer mode of QR codes.
However, the price volatility and frequent forks of BCH and the internal instability of the core group Bitmain should also affect people's enthusiasm for investing in and using BCH to a certain extent. However, not long ago, the widely-influenced Bitmain equity dispute also came to an end with one shareholder’s reconciliation and withdrawal.
Through the Bitcoin map, we can see that many countries and merchants in the world currently accept BTC and BCH for payment.
Official website:https://twitter.com/rogerkver/status/1341426411131777025
Official website:https://www.bitcoincash.org/
3. Alchemy Pay（ACH）Category: Payment Ecosystem + Merchant Payment Application
Introduction: Alchemy Pay (ACH) provides global developers (enterprises) and their users with "safe, fast, compliant, and internationalized" payment system services, which can realize the free conversion of legal currency and encrypted currency, and provide exchange rate lock for transactions , security anti-fraud, bitcoin instant payment, etc. At the same time, it has deep technical and resource reserves in the field of DeFi and mining
The main business of ACH includes: international payment channel + bank card issuance + fiat currency buying and selling bitcoin + investment, etc.
International payment channel: in the form of an open platform, in order to provide online payment solutions for more than 65 countries and regions, 300 legal currencies and 20 digital currencies to global developers (enterprises), developers can apply for a global payment channel in one stop .
Bank card issuance: Provide white card issuance services for enterprises, support Visa/Master, physical card/virtual card, and issue more than 200 mainstream countries and regions around the world.
Legal currency buying and selling Bitcoin: Provide legal currency trading Bitcoin SaaS system for global financial institutions, provide legal currency payment channels for global cryptocurrency exchanges, and support legal currency trading Bitcoin, Ethereum and other mainstream cryptocurrencies in 22 mainstream countries and regions around the world .
The value of ACH: When paying Alchemy Pay-related service fees (such as using payment channels, transfers, bank card applications, etc.), you will get more discounts and can participate in investment or mining. As the intermediate adjustment and settlement token of the network consensus agreement, the ACH token serves as the equivalent of guarantee and anti-fraud mortgage settlement in the process of free exchange between fiat currency and cryptocurrency, providing Alchemy Pay with network value liquidity and security guarantee
Alchemy Pay is one of the developers of Shopify’s encrypted payment cash register, an e-commerce service platform with hundreds of billions in US stocks. Alchemy provides an overall solution for underlying technology and payment. Other digital currencies such as LTC and BNB directly provide upper-level payment tokens.
white paper:
Official website:https://www.alchemytech.io/
white paper:https://download.alchemywallet.cn/download/files/Alchemy_WP-CN.pdf
4. USD Coin-USDCCategory: Compliant Payment Stablecoin
Introduction: USDC means: USD Coin is issued by Circle, a regulated financial institution, and is a compliant USD stablecoin backed by all reserve assets. It is exchanged for USD at a 1:1 ratio. USDC is governed by Centre, a membership-based consortium that sets technical, policy and financial standards for stablecoins. At present, USDC has a circulating circulation of 5.1 billion U.S. dollars, mainly on Ethereum, and blockchains such as Algorand. Personal speculation, due to the sudden surge in GAS fees during large-volume hot transactions on Eth, and the predictable mass production of USDC as a more compliant USD stablecoin, after 2021 USDC will be officially launched before ETH 2.0. It is more likely to choose fast, high-performance and compliant streaming public chains such as Algorand for large-scale use.
Payment use: In December 2020, USDC-Circle joined Visa, the growing Fast Track program, which already has hundreds of financial technology companies, including about 25 encrypted wallets. Circle's USDC functionality will be available to other members of the program, and it will partner with the payment giant to issue the first Crypto VISA corporate card, allowing cardholders to spend USDC at any of VISA's 60 million merchants. And payment underlying technology providers such as Bitpay and ACH will also actively support compliant international stable currencies. USDC's international financial use and international trade and other compliant use can be expected. Although USDT is still the most popular stable currency, the growth rate of USDC should not be underestimated.
How to get it:
USDC official website:https://www.circle.com/en/usdc
API Key：https://my-sandbox.circle.com/signup
5. CBDC-(Central Bank Digital Currency)-China DCEPIntroduction: CBDC is the collective name for various proposals involving digital currencies issued by central banks. Central bank digital currency is also known as digital fiat currency or digital base currency. In my country, it is called DCEP-Digital Currency Electronic Payment. At present, DCEP in China is still in the test point stage and is proceeding steadily.
The essence of DCEP is the digital form of legal currency. It can be understood that banknotes have become digital. Its essential attributes are exactly the same as cash, and its legal status is also the same. The currency in Alipay and WeChat Pay can be simply understood as the electronization of M2 currency, such as the digital representation of deposits, rather than digital currency; digital currency is a distributed architecture based on blockchain technology, while ordinary currency is based on the current common currency of the Internet. The underlying structure. DCEP is also mainly applied to M0.
M0=cash in circulation
M1=M0+ demand deposit
M2=M1+ all kinds of fixed deposits, deposit trusts and other coordinated deposits
M3=M2+ various other short-term current assets (short-term treasury bonds, bills of exchange, commercial papers)
So we can find that DCEP mainly refers to cash in circulation. Since it is cash in circulation, there is no such thing as saving money, so there is no interest in holding DCEP. The wallet based on blockchain technology can make DCEP have relatively higher privacy, independence and portability. Our usual WeChat Alipay basically needs to be bound to a bank account to recharge and transfer, and DCEP can be independent It is more convenient and flexible than being bound by a bank account.
Summarize:
As an important application field of blockchain technology, payment is also closely related to our daily life. The advantages of digital assets such as speed, convenience, security, and time-saving are already very obvious. Payment applications will also be the first to develop in the blockchain field, and the popularization of digital currency in payment will also drive the popularization of blockchain technology in various industries.
As the internationalization trend of online office, online entertainment, and online payment becomes more and more obvious, the expansion of payment blockchain applications in countries including large companies such as Paypal will be further accelerated in 2021-2022. Therefore, for payment underlying projects The payment contract projects BTC, LTC, BCH, ACH, ALGO, BNB, USDC, etc. will all have the potential to shine in the financial payment field.
At the same time, readers also need to increase their ability to judge value and scams. In the upsurge of the bull market, there will continue to be various projects that run away and projects that flaunt the hype to catch you. Therefore, only by strengthening our judgment logic can we truly ride the wind and waves.
Please note: This article is not intended as any investment advice, but only as a reference for popular science.
▌Author: Brother Future
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