Vitalik Buterin says crypto payments are superior, people underestimate the potential

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that crypto payments are better than many realize due to their convenience and censorship resistance feature.

People continue to underrate how often cryptocurrency payments are superior not even because of censorship resistance but just because they’re so much more convenient.

Big boost to international business and charity, and sometimes even payments within countries.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 24, 2022

In an August 24 tweet, Vitalik said the crypto payment could be a “big boost to international business and charity, and sometimes even payments within countries.”

In an interview during Korea Blockchain Week 2022, Buterin said that digital asset-based payments would become more popular in the coming years.

According to him, the Ethereum merge will make crypto payments more popular because it will reduce Ethereum fees. Thus, leading to “improvements to efficiency and accessibility of the crypto.”

Buterin said that several people worldwide already use digital assets for international payments. But there are still more opportunities for crypto payments in lower-income countries, which is why fee restructuring is essential, as it is currently too expensive.

Additionally, Buterin talked about the vision of Bitcoin (BTC) to serve as a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system.” He expressed optimism about Bitcoin Lightning Network, saying that Layer 2 scaling solutions can help expand use cases for crypto assets.

Buterin said:

“Scalability isn’t just like some boring thing where you just need like cost numbers go down scalability, I think actually enables and unlocks entirely new classes of applications.”

SBF identifies opportunities in crypto payments

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in a recent Twitter thread, also pointed out that the crypto industry has use cases in payments.

3) Let’s start with payments, both domestic and international.

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) July 16, 2022

According to SBF, payments using the traditional financial system are hard, slow, and costly. In contrast, crypto payments “take seconds to process, cost fractions of a penny, and are finalized in less than a minute.”

Meanwhile, several merchants already accept crypto as a payment option.

PYMNTS study revealed that 85% of businesses surveyed with an annual income over $1 billion are adopting crypto payments.