The email from Stripe’s support team came on November 5th:

Because of the new legal peer-to-peer sports betting features that ZenSports launched on September 12, 2018, Stripe had made the decision that they were cutting off ZenSports from all further credit card processing using its third party API. Cutting us off without any kind of real research into the exact nature of our business. Cutting us off without reading the legal opinion on how everything we’re doing is completely legitimate and legal. And cutting us off without any warning whatsoever and leaving our customers in a complete lurch so that effective immediately, their payments could no longer be processed within ZenSports.

This kind of blanket authority should send chills down everyone’s spine. A centralized figure head or group of people at Stripe were able to come up with a policy to ban businesses that it finds unsavory or doesn’t approve of, despite the fact that those businesses are 100% legal. While any company can of course choose to do business or not do business with any other company for any reason, the decision to not do business because one doesn’t “approve” of the nature of someone’s new product suite (even though it’s 100% legal) is scary.

We need cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology to eliminate Big Brother’s control

So what can be done about the overreaching nature of these financial tech giants that want to exert their control over the little guy? The solution lies within the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

Cryptocurrencies are a form of digital currency that use a distributed, online ledger called the blockchain to manage sending payments from one person to the next. The blockchain is “decentralized”, which means that it’s fully run and managed by technology without a centralized authority telling people how they’re allowed to send money or for what purpose. With blockchain and cryptocurrencies, you can send money to another person through ZenSports or via any other application, and you can do so for any reason — without having to get any person’s or company’s approval saying that you’re allowed to do so. You, the people, have full control over the management of your money. Which is how it should be.

As part of ZenSports current Token Sale, ZenSports will actually be launching its own cryptocurrency token next month and integrating it into our product in Q1. Anyone can purchase our cryptocurrency tokens, use them for anything they want within our app, and not have to worry about some out-of-touch executive saying “sorry, you can’t do that” or “we don’t want your business”. The power is yours to send and receive money whenever and however you want. There will also be the ability to exchange these tokens back to fiat (government currencies like dollars) if anyone so chooses.

We concede that despite the myriad of frustrations around traditional, centralized payment solutions like Stripe, that the entire world is not yet ready to begin using crypto. For those that still prefer paying for products within ZenSports using traditional fiat, we’ll be implementing a new, gaming/betting friendly credit card processor who will have no problem taking our or your business. This will happen in the next 30–45 days (we’re currently vetting out different providers).

Even though cryptocurrencies haven’t gone mainstream yet, it’s decisions like these from Stripe that hammer yet another nail into the coffin of centralized payment authorities. People will not be denied the ability to pay for legal, legitimate goods just because these financial service providers refuse to join the 21st century. Time is on the side of crypto, blockchain, and decentralization — not Big Brother telling everyone what they can and can’t do with their money.

Try sending me a cancellation email on that one.

If you need any further clarification about Stripe’s decision, please contact their support team directly at [email protected] or on Twitter @Stripe. You can follow ZenSports on Twitter @TheZenSports