We’ve already launched BDG token payments and started selling our first paid courses on the platform. What we noticed in the weeks that followed was that the barrier of entry for many students was too high. The BitDegree Token only payments left a lot of our daily users confused. However, this problem is not only native to BitDegree, it’s a problem for cryptocurrency altogether.

The majority of everyday users do not know what cryptocurrency is. This is the problem with blockchain, it’s a new technology and lacks mass adoption, user education.

Our daily users voiced their concerns that they do not feel comfortable buying BitDegree courses because they do no understand cryptocurrency payments. They would gladly use alternative payment methods and they want the product, but they can’t access it.

1. The current cryptocurrency payment issues

If you’re not already interested in cryptocurrency & blockchain, the process is complicated. To purchase a BitDegree course if you don’t already own cryptocurrency looks something like this.

Creating a digital wallet that can support BDG tokens. Buying ETH or BTC with fiat on an exchange. Exchanging your ETH or BTC for BDG tokens from one of the available exchanges. Transferring your BDG tokens to your wallet. Getting a wallet address from BDG, sending your tokens to us and waiting for the course to unlock.

We’ve started working on user education, but when you need 2 articles worth of instructions for users to buy your courses, it’s a bad strategy.

These 5 steps create a lot of room for error, and some users view it so complicated that they avoid the purchase altogether. And we need to solve this.

2. How to solve the complicated payment method issue?

To solve this issue, we want to make payment convenient to the user. Customers do not care what kind of payment method there is as long as it’s convenient for them.

All they want is a simple & fast way to complete transactions. We can simplify the process by accepting payments that users are already familiar with. PayPal & other FIAT payment options enable the user to experience the payment process they’re already familiar with.

It’s crucial to understand the big picture. With more & more users educating themselves about cryptocurrency we’ll be able to shift the transactional models to favor cryptocurrency.

One of the plans we have is converting payments to BDG tokens. This is still being developed, and as the technology progresses, there might be new tools available to use. Our daily users would be able to experience easy payments while we take care of all the tech stuff in the back-end.

At the same time, we could be offering better deals if you pay with BDG and we don’t need to convert. Discounts, incentives & continuous encouragement to use BitDegree Token would push more and more people to use the BitDegree Token.

The users would have a choice: convenience that is more expensive. Or inconvenient (at the moment), but cheaper payment methods.

You can imagine the payments like a funnel. If the user pays by BDG, they get additional discounts because we do not need to go through the conversion process in the backend. However, if he chooses another payment method, we would convert them to BDG for the user automatically. The end goal is to either provide massive benefits and push people to use the BitDegree Token or funnel alternative payment methods into BDG.

Blockchain is a niche, with like 0.5% of the population knowing how to perform a transaction. Until mass adoption is reached we need to be operating in the interest of everyone.

So how does this impact the BitDegree Token Utility?

One of the plans for the future is to have an automated converter that would work together with various exchanges and all of the payments that are made result in BDG token being used as the final result.

This positively impacts the BitDegree Tokenomics by exposing the platform to users who might have never considered using the platform before. It also generates more transactions by automating the process and allowing our users who wouldn’t have purchased a course with BDG to be part of the eco-system.