Obyte for Merchants: Exploring Wallet Use Cases and Other GBYTE Benefits

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A ledger without middlemen

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In the ever-evolving landscape of cryptocurrencies, Obyte has emerged as a promising contender for merchants seeking innovative payment solutions. As a fully decentralized platform, Obyte's native cryptocurrency, GBYTE, offers unique benefits that set it apart from mainstream counterparts like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

We’ll delve here into the reasons why merchants should consider accepting GBYTEs as a form of payment. Additionally, we’ll explore interesting wallet uses and how merchants can harness the power of Obyte's user-friendly features to streamline transactions, leverage smart contracts, and unlock new possibilities for their businesses.

Faster and cheaper transactions

GBYTE transactions (or any other Obyte asset transaction) are processed quickly, usually within seconds, due to its DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) structure. In contrast, both Bitcoin and Ethereum utilize traditional blockchain technology, which can lead to slower transaction times and higher fees, especially during periods of network congestion.

This is a no-brainer, actually. We can quickly check the current costs of each mentioned network online. Ethereum has an average transaction fee of over $6.8 (on 27/07/2023), with an All-Time-High (ATH) close to even $200 per operation. Meanwhile, Bitcoin transactions are taking $1.2 now, but that’s been over $59 not too long ago (2021). It really depends on the network state at the moment.

Data by BitInfoCharts

For its part, a typical transaction in GBYTEs just takes a fee of around $0.00001. If we imagine that your small business makes around 20 transactions per day, they’d barely cost $0.0002 in total with GBYTEs. By using Bitcoin, the cost would be $24, and that amount would rise with Ethereum: $136. That’s a lot going to transaction fees only.

Not to mention that cryptocurrencies like GBYTE can facilitate cross-border transactions. This can save merchants from dealing with international transaction fees, complex requirements, and delays for all the involved parties. No matter where the users are, transactions will still be processed instantly.

Higher decentralization

We can say that blockchains were the first step to decentralization. Decentralization is a broad concept that can be summed up in three main advantages: no middlemen (and no fees from middlemen), higher privacy, and no censorship or external control of your own funds. Centralization, the opposite concept, is what happens with banks (for example). They always take their fees, know everything about your transactions, and can even stop them for any reason.

Decentralized systems are aiming to avoid those issues by eliminating the middlemen and replacing them with reliable code. However, in the case of blockchain systems, they replaced traditional middlemen with slightly more numerous but still powerful middlemen: miners and/or so-called “validators”. They're in charge of adding new blocks and transactions to the network, and they could cherry-pick the transactions they like, order them the way they like, or apply censorship. They could even double-spend some funds if they collude.

Those aren’t issues with a DAG system like Obyte. This one doesn’t have miners or intermediaries at all. It doesn’t have blocks, either. Instead, every block-free transaction will link to their parents and children (the ones that happened before and after), freely.

The only other necessary thing is the order: which operation came first is important to avoid the double-spending problem. That's a job for some waypoint transactions made by highly recognized individuals/companies involved in the ecosystem and called "Order Providers". They can’t censor individual transactions or users, though.

Even if those providers collude, there’s not much they can do, and not much they can gain from it. If a user made a transaction referencing previous ones, then it exists on the DAG and nothing can change it. Never.

Conditional payments and friendly smart contracts

Conditional payments, a specific type of smart contract in Obyte, enable users to set conditions that must be met before funds are released. This functionality adds an extra layer of security and trust to transactions. For instance, a merchant can use a conditional payment to release payment to a supplier only after receiving proof of delivery, or a customer can place funds in escrow that will only be released to the seller upon confirming the receipt of goods or services.

The best part about it is that anyone could do it, without any programming knowledge. While other platforms offer complex smart contracts only available for developers to create, Obyte has a more user-friendly and accessible smart contract system. They're written in plain English, making them easier to understand and deploy from the wallet app, similar to any other easy function like sending funds.

By embracing smart contracts and conditional payments in Obyte, merchants can streamline their payment processes, mitigate risks, and enhance customer trust. These features provide a level of security and efficiency that traditional payment systems often struggle to match.

Create your own assets

If you need your own customized asset for any reason (loyalty programs, crowdfunding, privacy features, etc.), Obyte also has that option available for anyone, without coding involved. With the user-friendly Obyte Asset Registry, it’s possible to create tokens representing real-world assets, loyalty points, or other forms of digital assets without the need for complex smart contracts.

This capability opens up a wide range of possibilities for businesses to tokenize their products or services, facilitating seamless trading and exchange. Furthermore, Obyte's asset transfer functionality enables swift and secure movement of these newly created assets between users.

Merchants can leverage this feature to create reward programs, offer tokenized incentives to customers, or even facilitate cross-border remittances without the traditional financial intermediaries' hassle. Currently, the company Aufort is using this feature to represent its gold reserves and investments internally.

Ask chatbots

If you’re looking for more features, a wallet chatbot will likely be able to help you. They’re simple apps designed to “chat” with users and meet their needs. Simple chatbots are a great tool to eliminate intermediaries, make faster payments, access some features that couldn’t be easily accessed otherwise, and obtain easy instructions for specific functions. In Obyte, they come as a native feature in the official Obyte wallet.

A chatbot could do practically anything, and its function is usually clear from its name. Any user of the Obyte wallet can visit the section “Chat”, and go to the “Bot Store” to explore the available bots. They could be exchanges, identity attestations, oracles, faucets, payment channels, insurance or sports betting. The user only needs to “add” (pair) them as contacts and follow their instructions.

Obyte solution for merchants

Obyte provides a compelling solution for merchants, empowering them with innovative tools and features to streamline payments, enhance customer interactions, and drive business growth. Its payment solution allows businesses to accept payments in GBYTEs for goods and services sold online. With the Woocommerce plugin, implementation is effortless, requiring no installations.

Using the Obyte full merchant solution, websites can integrate a quick Obyte payment button, similar to PayPal, enabling customers to make hassle-free payments from desktop or mobile devices. The process is straightforward: the payment button embeds the order details and Obyte merchant address, and once the customer clicks or scans the QR code, their Obyte wallet opens with the specified payment amount. Upon network confirmation, merchants receive the payment minus a small commission.

The system caters to both desktop and mobile customers, allowing seamless payments across devices. Obyte for web merchants ensures transparency for customers, maintaining no records except payment details. The platform also provides a merchant history and charts for activity tracking.

One of the main features is multi-currency input, accommodating merchants who sell in BTC or fiat currencies. By showing the amount in their preferred currency, the platform calculates the exchange rate, ensuring merchants receive the correct amount without commission on the exchange rate.

This is an efficient and secure payment solution, enabling businesses to embrace Obyte's digital currency network for smooth transactions, quick payments, and wider customer reach while maintaining privacy and flexibility in currency handling. If you’re ready to expand your customer base, starting here is completely free!