A Closer Look At How Crypto Payments Can Truly Be Simplified For The Masses

Despite the crypto ecosystem having matured greatly over the past decade, the market still faces a lack of user-friendly payment solutions, especially those that offer trad-fi like convenience but with a blockchain centric ethos. 

In this regard, two companies that have been front and centre of changing this long-standing status quo are Nimiq, Binance Pay and Revolut, with both firms aiming to make crypto more accessible even though their fundamental philosophies and technical implementations offer contrasting visions of what mainstream crypto adoption could look like.  

Self-custody vs managed convenience?

Upon first glance, the most striking difference between Nimiq, Revolut and Binance Pay lies within their respective approaches to asset custody, with the first having built its entire ecosystem around a ‘self-custody’ model where users maintain complete control of their private keys at all times. 

What makes this setup especially innovative is that Nimiq’s native wallet solution actually runs a light node directly within the users’ browser, allowing them to connect to the network without relying on third-party servers. Simply put, with this approach anyone with internet access can use Nimiq without downloading specialized applications or relying on centralized gatekeepers. 

Furthermore, the platform seeks to enhance its users’ experience using a concept called ‘gas abstraction,’ which allows individuals to send USDC or USDT on Polygon without them having to manually handle assets normally required for transaction fees — ensuring a high degree of security while making user operations extremely streamlined.

In contrast, Revolut and Binance Pay operate primarily as custodians requiring users to entrust them with their assets once deposited. For instance, within the Revolut app, the actual coins are held by the company through third-party custodians rather than in a wallet controlled by the investor themselves — with crypto balances basically being an IOU recorded on Revolut’s internal ledger. 

Similarly, Binance Pay operates entirely within the Binance ecosystem, requiring users to have an account with the latter (alongside a fully KYC’d digital identification). And, while this approach undoubtedly enables users to access a wide range of integrated services and familiar payment experiences, it does require a high degree of trust in these entities to secure funds and facilitate transactions. 

Performance architectures analyzed

How a platform handles transaction throughput and confirmation speeds significantly impacts its usefulness for everyday payments. In this regard, Nimiq’s approach centers on optimizing its blockchain for payment-specific performance, repeatedly demonstrating impressive ~1-second transaction confirmations while being able to process over 1,000 transactions per second via its main chain. 

This throughput — estimated to be approximately three times that of PayPal’s current capacity — has once again proven dispelled the myth that decentralized networks cannot achieve performance levels suitable for retail point-of-sale (PoS) applications fairly easily. 

Revolut and Binance Pay, however, take fundamentally different approaches with both platforms processing transactions off-chain within their own internal systems. For example, when Revolut users transfer crypto or spend it, the system only interacts with the blockchain when absolutely necessary — such as when withdrawing crypto to an external wallet. 

Similarly, Binance Pay relies on Binance’s centralized infrastructure to handle payments, with transactions occurring off-chain within the company’s servers (essentially just debiting one account and crediting another in Binance’s internal system).

Exploring the future of digital payments 

As things stand, all three platforms seem to be in the process of actively developing digital rails that can streamline how crypto can integrate with existing payment infrastructures available globally — even though their approaches reflect their underlying differences.

Nimiq, for instance, has been working with NAKA to create EMV-compatible, non-custodial crypto payment solutions. This collaboration has already enabled Nimiq Pay users to make purchases at thousands of merchants and over 2,400 point-of-sale terminals worldwide. 

What makes this approach distinctive is that Nimiq users can transact at real-world stores while maintaining control of their funds, which is quite unlike traditional crypto cards that require depositing assets with a custodian. 

Moreover, as its merchant network expands across regions like Lugano and El Salvador, Nimiq’s integration positions it to offer card payments that draw directly from self-custodial wallets, potentially delivering the convenience of traditional payment cards without compromising on cryptocurrency’s decentralized ethos.

Binance Pay too has been making strides in this regard by forging several high profile partnerships recently and introducing features like merchant integrations and QR code payments that resemble traditional finance tools. 

Revolut, meanwhile, has continued to roll out features like crypto-enabled debit cards that let users pay at any store via Apple or Google Pay, with the crypto balance auto-converted behind the scenes. 

Therefore, as the industry continues to evolve, the question of which of these platforms truly simplifies crypto payments may ultimately depend on one’s definition of simplicity and convenience. However, one thing is for sure that interesting times lie ahead!

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