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Bitcoin will win if adopted for Business' Cross Border Payments, Worldwide
467 sats \ 4 comments \ @AG 12 May AGORA
After today post about B2B Businesses in Bitcoin, leaving aside the topic about businesses needing or not a debit/credit system based on bitcoin, I thought I'll need to dive a bit deeper into the current dynamics.

How businesses, especially in the B2B sector, are moving with cross-border payments.

What I found is actually reeeally interesting! It's a huge market and for what I know not many are taking attention. Let me feed my point with some images, because look's like small and medium-size businesses are turning to nonbank providers for cross-border payments 1.
Cool, Mckinsey reports we still use traditional banks, however NeoBanks are taking place and considering have been around for around a decade, it's probable they will overtake really soon
While domestic payments are becoming instant and digital, cross-border payments have yet to benefit from the transformative power of digital technologies. Fees for international payments currently average 1.5% for corporates and as much as 6.3% for remittances. And it can take up to several days for these payments to reach their recipient.2
Fees and delivery time, this topic sounds from the past for us in the bitcoin space... it's even more incredible that the preferred payment method for cross border payments is PayPal, followed by Checks and Wires 3! Really? I can't believe it!
And checking at last year flows, B2B is covering a big chunk of the volume 4
... and the revenue it generates. Here some projections:
Bitcoin...
Blockchain technology has the potential to help financial institutions to leapfrog to an infrastructure that is able to support near-instantaneous transactions and automate complexity. Blockchain was initially created to enable cryptocurrencies to operate without the need for centralized clearing and settlement of transfers between two parties. In the traditional system, banks keep their own separate records (ledgers) of all their transactions. When a payment is made, the ledgers of the two parties have to be reconciled. With cryptocurrencies, there is a single digital ledger, the blockchain. Every time a transaction is made, it is checked against this shared ledger to make sure the participant has the required funds to complete the transaction. — JP Morgan says 5
Unfortunately traditional businesses, worldwide, continue operating under regulations just because they don't know better. The alternative is there, we can still be operating in commerce and following laws that have been there for us all for centuries. Where do we make a difference as business then? How one could operate without the need of reporting, bend to boring super-strict data privacy regulations just because someone took authority and decided it's safer for fraud prevention? How free is the current global market considering all the regulations that are in place to safeguard?
We continue behaving that to do business, we should register a company, pay our taxes and follow the book of rules. 16 years of bitcoin, probably 14 of fiat bitcoin-flavored companies, and we see them failing, and more will fail, mostly because not even the authority know how to keep up with tech. Is this really the way we want to continue doing business, innovating?
My last question for the poll below:

What's your preference?

Footnotes

  1. Global payments in 2024: Simpler interfaces, complex reality - PDF Report https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/global-payments-in-2024-simpler-interfaces-complex-reality#/ ↩
  2. Extending the benefits of digital technologies to cross-border payments https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2023/html/ecb.blog231031~85a4bcdee0.en.html ↩
  3. The Complete Guide to Cross-Border Payments https://tipalti.com/resources/learn/cross-border-payments-guide/ ↩
  4. Cross border payment revenues to reach $280 billion by 2030 -PDF Report https://convera.com/blog/payments/cross-border-payment-revenues-to-reach-280-billion-by-2030/ ↩
  5. THE RACE TO REWIRE CROSS-BORDER PAYMENTS https://www.jpmorgan.com/payments/payments-unbound/volume-3/cross-border-payment-modernization ↩
I'LL continue registering business(es)16.7%
NEED TO BE AN INSIDE JOB16.7%
WE NEED REGULATIONS0.0%
I KNOW THERE's a Better way50.0%
BUSINESS SHOULD BE PRIVATE16.7%
6 votes \ poll ended
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 12 May
Looks more likely mBridge or other Chinese digital payment protocols will dominate international trade payments. They are already provisioning Iran, Russia a d N.Korea with trade liquidity outside of the SWIFT USD system. China will want the massive strategic power that comes from controlling trade payments and USA will gradually lose its hegemony in this area as the changes required to implement CBDCs are too difficult for its legacy trade payments and banking system to manage. A minority of business will probably adopt Bitcoin but it will lack the volume required to dominate. Chinas dominance of trade makes it in the best position to gain dominance over trade payments and it is gradually working toward achieving this.
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7 sats \ 2 replies \ @AG OP 23h
never heard of mBridge, even if relatively new, still, looks is an alternative control system for international trade. What make you think that just a minority of business will probably adopt Bitcoin ...?
If the tech gap needed to understand it that will be the obstacle or anything else? Ad even if they adopt bitcoin, do you think they will continue doing BAU under govs regulations?
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 23h
Yes mBridge is potentially very much a control system, operated by the CCP, as a competitor to SWIFT/USD which is also a control system which has given US huge power and wealth. Jack Ma was 'sidelined' (silenced) after he got too enthusiastic about Alipay while the CCP favours its CBDC Yuan...which dovetails into mBridge. China has made no secret of its intentiomn to build an alternative to the USD/SWIFT trade payments hegemony of the US. It is almost essential that China do this if it is to advance beyond its current state pof development- to remain hostage to the IMF/World Bank, BIS and SWIFT USD system would limit Chinas development potential as an independent super power and make it probable they would end up as another Japan, captured and controlled by US banking tribute status. The Chinese will not want that outcome.
Businesses are mostly operated under the protection and regulation of governments- this is how governments can impose fiat monetary regimes. Few businesses can avoid that protection and regulation- mostly just ones operating outside the law.
There will be understandable resistance to a Chinese based monetary protocol but the Chinese have the ability to impose it because they control the worlds most productive economy and any nation opting out of trade with China loses considerable economic advantage. As monetary hegemony transitions toward China Bitcoin should have a role as a neutral protocol but it is very hard to see it being more than a minor alternative in terms of scale due to network effect in favour of Chinese.
When predicting Bitcoins potential adoption it may help to consider the fact that while Bitcoin does deliver superior degree of monetary freedom and utility to individuals it does not provide the same advantages to nation states- it instead reduces their monetary leverage powers considerably, especially if/where adopted as a MoE. Note most autocracies have outright banned Bitcoin use as a MoE, while in the west it is quasi outlawed in a sly but effective manner via absurdly obstructive tax recording and reporting requirements achieved by designating it as a speculative commodity not a p2p payments protocol- despite the fact that it very explicitly was and is created for just such a purpose!
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @AG OP 14h
Thanks for sharing this documentary, I'll take time and watch it. I agree on what you say, autocracies are trying to have control over Bitcoin, I doubt they will succeed. With time, everything will get redistributed.
Businesses are mostly operated under the protection and regulation of governments- this is how governments can impose fiat monetary regimes.
In the last chart highlighted the "revenue", guess whose revenue is for. From what I know, governments are business too. The ones defining the rules, meanwhile the commerce law, has been there for longer we can remember. Govs have been just taking authority over it and make us believe we need to pass through their approval to trade. From what I'm studying, this is not true: We can operate without authorizations, licenses, fees...
China like any other government if playing in the competitive market, fiat approach! How many can collaborate instead?
Few businesses can avoid that protection and regulation- mostly just ones operating outside the law.
It is not about avoiding it, it is about learning how to do business in the private. Ok, not many have knowledge of commerce law, maritime law even less. Everything started from there. And I don't mean the lessons taught at unis and public schools.
I'm more concern about the general expectations on having a free market to flourish. How? Even in the bitcoin ecosystem, people continue registering businesses and bend to gov authorities?
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