Why does crypto help with microtransactions?
I understand the appeal of anonymous currencies like Monero (hence why they are banned from exchanges), but beyond that I don't see much use for crypto
E.g., you could do what World of Warcraft does - Gold can be earned/exchanged in game, and can also interact with the real world in nebulous ways. Using the hyper advanced technologies of relational databases and ignoring financial legislation, they have enabled ultra-high-throughput microtransactions, with the added benefit of not spraying the public ledger on to the desk of every law enforcement agency on the planet.
A few examples of differences that could save money. The protocol processes everything without human intervention. Updating and running the cryptocoin network can be done on the computational margin of the many devices that are in everyone's pockets. Third-party integrations and marketing are optional costs.
Just like those who don't think AI will replace art and employees. Replacing something with innovations is not about improving on the old system. It is about finding a new fit with more value or less cost.
> Updating and running the cryptocoin network can be done on the computational margin of the many devices that are in everyone's pockets.
Yes, sure, that's an advantage of it being decentralised, but I don't see a future where a mesh of idle iPhones process my payment at the bakery before I exit the shop.
Imagine dumping loads of agents making transactions that’s going to be much slower than getting normal database ledgers.
Really think that you need to update your priors by several years
2010 called and it wants its statistic back.
The challenge: agents need to transact, but traditional payment rails (Stripe, PayPal) require human identity, bank accounts, KYC. That doesn't work for autonomous agents.
What does work: - Crypto wallets (identity = public key) - Stablecoins (predictable value) - L2s like Base (sub-cent transaction fees) - x402 protocol (HTTP 402 "Payment Required")
We built two open source tools for this: - agent-tipjar: Let agents receive payments (github.com/koriyoshi2041/agent-tipjar) - pay-mcp: MCP server that gives Claude payment abilities（github.com/koriyoshi2041/pay-mcp)
Early days, but the infrastructure is coming together.
Like basically what an agent needs is access to PayPal or Stripe without all the pesky anti-bot and KYC stuff. But this is there explicitly because the company has decided it's in their interests to not allow bots.
The agentic email services are similar. Isn't it just GSuite, or SES, or ... but without the anti-spam checks? Which is fine, but presumably the reason every provider converges on aggressive KYC and anti-bot measures is because there are very strong commercial and compliance incentives to do this.
If "X for agents" becomes a real industry, then the existing "X for humans" can just rip out the KYC, unlock their APIs, and suddenly the "X for agents" have no advantage.