Payment transactions have different characteristics than DeFi transactions. Understanding this distinction matters for infrastructure design.
DeFi transactions are complex—multi-hop swaps, liquidity provision, leverage operations. They require sophisticated smart contract execution. Users accept higher costs because the transactions involve larger amounts and complex operations.
Payments are simple—send value from A to B. The smart contract logic is trivial. But the volume is orders of magnitude higher and the amounts are smaller.
@Plasma recognized these different requirements need different infrastructure.
A general-purpose chain tries to accommodate both use cases. This creates compromises. The chain needs to handle complex DeFi logic, which requires more expensive execution. Payment transactions pay for infrastructure capacity they don't use.
A payment-specific chain can optimize differently. Simpler transaction types. Higher throughput. Lower costs. The entire architecture focuses on moving value efficiently rather than supporting general computation.
EVM compatibility means stablecoin contracts and payment integrations work without rewriting. But the chain underneath is optimized for payment patterns—high volume, simple transactions, minimal cost.
The economic model matters. For DeFi, users accept $2-5 transaction costs because they're trading thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. For payments, transaction costs need to be under $0.01 to be competitive with existing systems.
Traditional payment rails charge 2-3% for international transfers. That's $2-3 on a $100 transaction. If blockchain payments cost $0.50, that's still a significant improvement but not revolutionary. At $0.01 cost, you're at 0.01% fee, which completely changes the economics.
$XPL's role in the payment ecosystem creates utility through transaction processing and network participation.
For global stablecoin payments to scale, infrastructure needs to be purpose-built for this use case. Trying to use general-purpose chains creates cost and throughput constraints that prevent mainstream adoption.
Merchants need reliable, fast, cheap payment processing. Consumers need transactions to cost essentially nothing. Remittance users need cross-border transfers cheaper than Western Union.
These requirements are different from what DeFi users need. Building infrastructure specifically for payments rather than trying to accommodate every possible use case is the correct architectural choice.
Payments are a massive market—trillions in annual volume globally. Stablecoins have proven demand. The missing piece is infrastructure optimized for payment transaction patterns rather than adapted from general-purpose blockchain architecture. #Plasma $XPL @Plasma
