Not the coin you're looking for
Oddly enough, when I posted this breakthrough on Twitter, I was instantly bombarded with replies saying that $2 transactions that take 30 minutes to complete seem arcane.
Even though I'm quite convinced that many of the replies on social media are either from people trying to pump their own bags or bots whose job it is to shill their programmer's coin, it's still a valid point.
Yes, there are literally thousands of altcoins out there that could facilitate such transactions in seconds for fractions of a penny. So what's so great about Bitcoin?
Well, for starters, most of these lower-tier coins are untested at scale. In other words, their network is free of people, therefore any incoming transactions will go through right away.
It's kind of like a business trying to advertise by saying "hey, we have no other customers so you won't need to wait in line." That's not extremely attractive, if you ask me.
More to the point, however, is that of the thousands of altcoins out there, I don't want to have to guess which one my transactional counterparty is familiar with or willing to accept.
I know for a fact that my analyst will be happy to receive bitcoin, and that I have a bitcoin stash that I can feasibly use to pay with.
However, If I tell him "hey, let me send you some XLM," the response probably won't be enthusiastic, because it would probably require him to spend time and energy researching wallets and exchanges.
I'm not saying that there isn't value in some of these lower-tier coins, as there is plenty, especially when we start to think about various use cases.
But for the purpose of getting a payment of this size done in an efficient manor, there's practically no difference between a $2 fee and zero fee.
Happy Star Wars Day!! May the Force be with you.
