Ethereum is a platform of programmable money. Using smart contracts, I can see the entire industry of payment processors completely disappearing. This includes all the middle-men players that insert themselves in the process of you giving money to a merchant. This includes the payment processor company, the payment gateway company, and the various other players that try to nick pennies off of that single transaction.

Think of a scenario where you’re shopping for a car at a dealership. There’s several players here:

The buyer

The salesperson

The local dealer

The dealer’s parent company

The IRS (or whatever tax agency is in your country)

In a world of smart contracts, all we need to do is deploy a smart contract that the buyer will sender the final agreed amount to. The job of the smart contract is (all the percentages below are fudged for the example):

10% commision to salesperson’s wallet

8% sales tax to the IRS’s wallet

50% to parent company’s wallet (or smart contract)

32% to local dealer’s wallet (or smart contract)

What’s the point? For one, it’s automatic bookeeping. Need to reference all transactions that occurred for the month? Query the smart contract. This keeps all the parties involved honest by automating the splitting of the revenue. This also saves expenses for the dealership. They no longer need an accountant (full time at least) to handle the books and taxes, it’s already done.

However, I do recognize that a lot of our economy pays with credit. Paying with ether, or whatever other cryptocurrency, is similar to paying with cash that you already have. I can see credit companies emerge in the blockchain space that will front you money of your choosing. Perhaps a topic for another post.

Would love to hear your thoughts

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