brypto

it's inevitable that crypto product frontends will price access in stables and allow users to pay in whatever asset they want.

pricing access to a product in a volatile asset is too bad of a user AND builder experience for it to remain the norm.

speculators buy access they'll never use, drive up prices and lock out potential real users.

bad for builders (who need real usage), bad for users (who can't get in).

"what's wrong with adjusting access requirements as price changes?"

if you're dropping access from 10k $token to 1k $token while nothing about the product changed, you're already pricing in stables — you're just using $token as an unstable middleman, introducing volatility risk for users and extra work for yourself.

defi enables any product frontend to show price to access at a stable $25, yet users can still pay in whatever they want (ETH, USDC, ANON, HIGHER, VEIL).

the tech for this already exists today. zero friction for users. zero complexity for builders. zero volatility risk for everyone.

I agree with Ted for the most part, esp for chain specific consumer.

HOWEVER, in crypto incentives can be aligned or broken based on how you take payments.

Imagine a decentralized iCloud infra was built on ethereum, so nodes are staked there. They take payments in usdc. It has pmf with lots of users.

—-

Each chain doesn’t need its own clone of iCloud, it’s better UX if all chains use the same one. Light clients enable this.

So a user can pay on Solana if they want to, and here is where we run into issues.

——

Charging in stables creates a net sell pressure on the $SOL. So as iCloud makes money, it negatively impacts price of $SOL.

What’s much better is if you could pay in $SOL. This would provide a net buy pressure. So as iCloud extracts value, it increases the price of $SOL.

——

TLDR; be careful how you price things

I agree with Ted for the most part, esp for chain specific consumer.

HOWEVER, in crypto incentives can be aligned or broken based on how you take payments.

Imagine a decentralized iCloud infra was built on ethereum, so nodes are staked there. They take payments in usdc. It has pmf with lots of users.

—-

Each chain doesn’t need its own clone of iCloud, it’s better UX if all chains use the same one. Light clients enable this.

So a user can pay on Solana if they want to, and here is where we run into issues.

——

Charging in stables creates a net sell pressure on the $SOL. So as iCloud makes money, it negatively impacts price of $SOL.

What’s much better is if you could pay in $SOL. This would provide a net buy pressure. So as iCloud extracts value, it increases the price of $SOL.

——

TLDR; be careful how you price things 

https://warpcast.com/ted/0xdc4a8697

Working on building zkTLS infra/products. A ruthless empiricist and meme connoisseur.

/opacity
/eulerlagrange

Except then, when iCloud gets the Sol and they need to pay their vendors or employees or taxes, they have to sell it into USDC anyways

Values-Aligned Communities | citizen of Black Rock City

That’s just delaying the sale. Vendors and the government want USD

Still better than an immediate net sell pressure

And what vendor or government is going to agree to a lock up schedule in the first place? That doesn’t seem practical or plausible

You lock up the payout 

You can have people claim whenever they’re ready so no taxes until you claim

It’s a rough analogy, most decentralized participants are not trying to pull out to fiat.

There will be some baseline operating costs, but the incentive alignment is way better if you charge in Sol.

I’m not sure we’re understanding each other. iCloud is a business. All of their costs are in USD. They have to pay out in USD. So it doesn’t matter what they get paid in, they have to sell that currency for USD.