WHAT

Browser extension for Amazon to enable payments in Dai Stablecoin via Metamask

WHY

2 main motivators:

Usually, when making a purchase online you have a couple of payment options to chose from - these include wire transfers, credit card payments or third party payment services such as PayPal or Klarna. All of these standard payment options require you to have a bank account and access to a stable monetary system. To get the bank account you need to pass the given KYC requirements, in order to have access to a stable monetary system you need to be born in the right place. One of which is arbitrary - potentially both. Having the option to pay in Dai has the opportunity to solve for both.

This allows crypto payments to transcend into every day interactions.

HOW

We built an add-on that detects the Amazon payment checkout, is able to read out the basket balance and pre-populates the Dai amount and ethereum address of a Metamask transaction when the user opts for a settlement in Dai. The Dai is sent to the backend address upon which the backend responds with a valid Amazon voucher injecting the corresponding USD amount into the checkout process.

Architecture

FUTURE THOUGHTS

For this demo we make the assumption that the user holds Dai (+ ETH) and has a Metamask account (and are located in a country where Amazon operates). For now that would limit usage to small number of individuals, “CD openers””and the Leap DAOs of this world that pay their contributors in Taco and Dai.

However, usage should be extended to individuals that are currently excluded from traditional financial systems - think small hold farmer in a low income country that tokenizes future harvest income and uses this as collateral in Multi-Collateral Dai.