Stumbled on this while studying Tip Blockchain project,letting others know about it is nice...ENJOY!credits to John Warmann The founder of Tip Blockchain
3 problems crypto currency users face today
1.Random alphanumeric or hexadecimal addresses
The first problem users have to deal with in using crypto currencies is the address! To the average user, cryptocurrency addresses are a string or random alphanumeric characters. Bitcoin addresses look like this: 1MufAiS5KxYstVHDmrEM8fyfRNohfiNrMT, while Ethereum addresses look like this: 0xb794f5ea0ba39494ce839613fffba74279579268. These addresses might seem normal to anyone who has been using cryptocurrencies for some time, but to someone new to crypto, there’s nothing normal about them. The addresses are a cryptographic hash, which is a relic of cryptocurrencies being created by computer programmers and cryptographers.
It is practically impossible to find someone to transact with, without going through the address exchange ritual crypto users have come to accept. This creates friction which is one hurdle in the way of non-tech crypto adopters.
2.Lack of crypto- friendly solutions for merchants
The next time you are purchasing an item at a store or restaurant, think of this: Is it easier to pay with debit, credit card or mobile payment than it would be to do the transaction in Bitcoin or other crypto currency? For most users, the answer would be “yes”. The user would have to go through the address ritual all over again. High transaction fees and slow transaction speeds are also issues users have to deal with.
On the merchant side, how easy would it be to start accepting crypto currency payments for goods and services? Simply giving merchants an address that accepts crypto currency payments is not a solution to this problem. Merchants can not easily manage cryptocurrency payments or easily integrate them with their existing payment systems.
3.No contextual information around transactions
Payments have always had a way to incorporate some information or metadata around the payment. For example, when a cheque is written, there is a line for a memo that states what the cheque is for. In today’s online or mobile payments systems, there is usually a way to attach a note to a payment. In crypto currencies today, there is no easy way to add any form of contextual information to transactions. When a user or merchant receives a payment, they can not tell who it came from, what the payment is for, or any other contextual information. If a merchant received five crypto currency payments from five different customers, there would be no way to know which customer or order to attribute each payment to. Thus, crypto currencies are practically unusable for merchants in their current form.
SOLUTIONS OFFERED BY TIP BLOCKCHAIN
1.Friendly usernames instead of cryptographic hashes for addresses
The first problem crypto users face is having to deal with cryptographic hashes for addresses. As mentioned in the earlier post, this might seem normal to crypto users, but there is nothing normal about having an address that looks like this: 0xb794f5ea0ba39494ce839613fffba74279579268. While the properties of cryptography and mathematics, which blockchain technology is built upon, mandates the need for cryptographically secure addresses, this is an implementation detail that end users should not have to deal with. The solution Tip proposes for this problem is, user-friendly usernames, instead of cryptographic addresses.
Tip maps the hashed address to a friendly username. This is done on the protocol level, and is not dependent on third party applications or naming services like DNS or ENS. The cryptographic hashed addresses still exist, but users do not have to worry about that when sending transactions. A good analogy to this is on social platforms like Twitter or Instagram. User information is stored in databases. Each user has a unique identifier in this database which is usually made up of numeric or alphanumeric characters. The user id is an implementation detail that is not exposed to users, because it is irrelevant to them. Tip is taking a similar approach with blockchain accounts. By abstracting this detail of cryptographic hashes away, we are opening up the use of cryptocurrency to the non-technical user, in a way that will make sending cryptocurrency transactions as easy as using familiar social networks.
- Solutions for merchants
The second problem with crypto has to do with ease of use by businesses.
More and more businesses have started accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for payment. Whenever I see one of those “Bitcoin accepted here” stickers, I think of 2 things:
Cryptocurrency adoption is catching on.
How hard it must be for these businesses to process these cryptocurrency payments.
Simply giving a business a cryptocurrency address with no services or features give little incentive to businesses to accept crypto payments due the the lack of convenience. For cryptocurrency use to go mainstream, businesses need to get on board in a big way.
Sticking with the “ease of use” theme, Tip makes it easy for businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments by providing a Tip point-of-sale system. This will be a desktop and tablet application that makes it easy for businesses to accept Tip tokens. This gives businesses the features and conveniences they are used to such as:
Order management
Customer management
Sales reporting and analytics
Third party integrations
Coupled with the username feature, users will be able to send payments to the businesses they shop at using a familiar name, instead of that unsightly crypto address. With this system in place, when customers place orders or make purchases, the point-of-sale system takes care of organizing and presenting the associated information in a way that makes it easy for merchant to manage, process and attribute payments to the right orders and customers. Integrations will also be provided with existing popular payment systems.
The point-of-sale system will be a huge plus to the Tip ecosystem, as it will help connect businesses to their customers on one crypto platform.
3.Contextual information with addresses and transactions
The third major problem cryptocurrency users face is the lack of contextual information around transactions. This is a little more abstract which can be clarified with an example.
Let’s say a business that accepts cryptocurrency payments receives 5 transactions from 5 customers. Which payment corresponds to which customer? This question is difficult to answer with current solutions. The Tip solution to this problem is to allow accounts and transactions to be marked with additional information or metadata. Users can attach arbitrary data to their accounts and pass data along with transactions. In the example of 5 customers making purchases, the Tip wallet is the application responsible for correctly attaching relevant information to transactions and sending them to the merchant’s account using the merchant username. Once the payment is received, the merchant POS system will be able to identify which customer, order and any other pertinent information this comes from, by reading and organizing the attached metadata.
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