In the past month, I spent a lot of time understanding the traditional payment industry. Acquiring, issuing, acceptance, foreign exchange services (fx), multi-currency accounts, etc. I found that there is actually a dimensional wall between the traditional payment circle and the crypto circle. It is also because of the hot topic of stablecoins that the two circles have begun to merge. Through numerous interviews, I also learned about some characteristics of the traditional payment industry, such as: 1) Significant economies of scale. Because the profit margins in the payment industry are relatively thin, companies need to go through a long period of meticulous cultivation to form economies of scale before they can start making a profit. In most early cases, they are in a state of loss or just breaking even. Especially now, with the increasing costs of compliance and licensing, the initial investment for companies is quite high. 2) High dependence on bank infrastructure, with underlying channel capabilities becoming a key competitive factor. Instability in the underlying channels can lead to significant delivery pressure. 3) Multi-layered intermediaries create pain points in terms of costs and cycles. Payer's bank → Correspondent Bank → Clearing network (like SWIFT) → Payee's bank. Each layer adds a spread. 4) Sales-intensive customer acquisition methods. Product homogeneity is quite serious, mainly relying on sales and service for customer acquisition. Stablecoin payments are a killer application in certain very niche and vertical payment scenarios, but most merchants in the goods trade are still obediently accepting fiat. There is still a very long way to go for the mass adoption of stablecoin payments.

Additionally, I forgot to mention that sometimes we actually lack imagination regarding the degree of division in this world. For example, the vast majority of merchants, including people from traditional payment companies, have never used Metamask and don't really know what a wallet is.