#USEL

The world of cryptocurrency is a slow, beautiful evolution, working towards an exciting goal of global financial inclusion… sort of like a butterfly.

First we had #HODL

During the #HODL stage of crypto, there was literally nothing you could do with your crypto (well, besides buying drugs and cool things on the Silk Road). Wallets were primitive, applications non-existent, and exchanges hacked nearly every month. Thus, the only logical thing to do was to hold your crypto, using a paper wallet stored in an underground bunker in case of a zombie apocalypse. Obligatory link to original HODL forum post.

Next we had #BUIDL

During the most recent crypto winter (when our caterpillar friend turned into a cocoon), the wonderful Ethereum community began what became known as the #BUIDL stage. This stage saw the rise of some fantastic applications, my personal favorite being CryptoKitties, MakerDao, and EosKnights. Stellar saw some exciting projects come to fruition as well: StellarX, Solar Wallet, and Keybase’s Stellar integration. This stage, still very much going on today, represents the transition from creating blockchains to creating blockchain applications and safe, usable crypto wallets.

Now we have #USEL

I believe we are, in the coming years, approaching the transition to the final stage, #USEL. This stage is the most exciting, but also the most challenging to uncover because it requires a solid foundation in distribution (#HODL) and application development (#BUIDL). With Stellar’s Keybase Airdrop, we have #HODL. With the wonderful developers featured in this digest, we have #BUIDL. So how can you #USEL? The goal of this new section of the digest is to answer this question!

XLM → USD: Keybase and Path Payments

Faster, cheaper, and imo cooler than Venmo :)

The simplest way to use your XLM is to send it, as a payment to someone else. However, you are not limited to just sending XLM… you can send ANY asset that the recipient has explicitly chosen to accept (with a trustline). Let’s say I want to send $1 to Kolten. I don’t hold USD because I think its too stable; I enjoy volatility. However, Kolten just bought me a candy bar and I want to pay him back. I could send him XLM, utilizing the conversion rate provided for me by Keybase, but Kolten doesn’t want XLM, he wants a USD stable coin. With Keybase this is incredibly simple — you just need to select the destination asset, the send asset, and how much you want to send… it does all the black magic calculations for you! Within five seconds, I have paid back Kolten in full, and I am munching on my favorite candy bar (a Crunch Bar, thanks for asking!).