And how many years have they been at it? My impression in 2019, trying to add it to an Android app, was badly documented or deprecated libraries.
And then there is the whole debacle with XRP, the currency, and Ripple, the underlying tech, being used interchangeably and confusing everyone. Banks aren’t even interested in XRP.
That strikes me as more of an implementation detail. Day-to-day cryptocurrency use still requires a level of technical sophistication my grandma isn't comfortable with.
Because the converting currency X to crypto to currency Y is certainly not going to be cheaper or less volatile than a remittance service's existing forex setup which skips the middle bit, and it introduces a risky counterparty in the form of crypto exchanges.
Fundamentally bitcoin (and most other cryptos) are trying to fill two mutually exclusive goals. On one hand, they’re supposed to be the currency of the future; on the other you’re supposed to invest or trade in them like a speculative instrument to grow your net worth (hodl, mooning, lambos, etc.)
The issue is that these two can’t be filled by the same instrument effectively. Currencies need to be stable and predictable, nobody wants to discover that their paycheck has suddenly halved in value. They can inflate, but they should do that in a slow and steady manner so wages can keep up. On the other hand you want some volatility in your speculative instruments, as without volatility there’s no real opportunity to earn a profit and grow your net worth.
If something tries to be both, the results are disappointing. Either there’s no enough volatility to make traders happy, or there’s enough volatility to expose laborers or payment processors (depending on use case) to purchasing power shocks or conversion rate risks.
Unfortunately, it’s my belief that bitcoin maintains a lot of its value by trying to continually bring in new suckers (sorry, investors) in order to keep demand high without significant use cases. This kind of continual recruitment process is both fascinating, and really ruins bitcoin for anyone who wanted to use it for non-speculative purposes.
If it was an efficient way to cut on fees, everyone would do it. Yet almost nobody does.