Crypto assets like XRP are the perfect technology to trigger a revolution in the world of micropayments, according to one Ripple executive.
At FinTech Abu Dhabi 2019, Ripple’s managing director for Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa said hundreds of millions of people will one day rely on micropayments to move value.
Navin Gupta says real-world use cases include allowing websites to access content for a few pennies instead of signing up for a subscription.
“Let’s assume [the website] already has millions of subscribers and it’s reaching a saturation point. It wants to give you the right to read just one article at 10 cents… But there is no payment system in the world today which can accept 10 cents from Emily and pay it to [a publisher].
Nobody can do this at a reasonable price in a quick fashion so that she presses one button on the other side and she’s able to read an article. But cryptos can do it. At an almost negligible cost, they’re able to let Emily read an article. So micropayments is one such area where a very large number of publishers are looking for a venue to go to hundreds of millions of customers like Emily and get them on board where they’re able to serve bite-size content.”
Another big potential use case could emerge in the billion-dollar video game industry.
Gupta points to the sale of virtual in-game items as a potential mainstream marketplace for micropayments, and says his son is ready and waiting.
“He wins virtual swords. He will win different things but what he wants to do is convert his virtual sword into an ice cream. He wants to sell his virtual sword for a dollar for somebody else who wants it. He wants to get to the next level and convert that into ice cream. There is no payment system in the world that lets him do that.
Though he has won something of value, in the video game and social media everybody says, ‘Your sword is valuable.’ But what he needs is an ice cream. So what we are able to do is take that digital asset from him, and through XRP convert that into an ice cream which he can get at a shop in the fiat currency.
These are huge markets in waiting with hundreds of millions of customers, where the pent-up demand is there but we are failing them because there is no micropayments system. And at Ripple, we are changing that through investing in companies, through working in the ecosystem and helping them enable their businesses. And this is an idea whose time has come.”