Solana, a popular blockchain project that has been one of the biggest alternatives to Ethereum in recent months, now has a new payment service called Solana Pay. According to the project’s announcement, Solana Pay is a new payments protocol that will usher in a new era of payment and commerce.
The Solana team has created the building blocks for an open, decentralized P2P payment protocol that will pave the way for a new epayments future, where cryptocurrencies are prevalent, and digital money can move unfettered, without intermediaries or restrictions.
How does it work?
According to the project’s announcement, the core premise behind the Solana Pay protocol is that “pay tech” would go from being a service utility, to being a true P2P communication channel between merchants and consumers. The protocol provides specifications that will allow users to send digital dollar currencies, such as USD Coin (USDC) from user wallets into merchant accounts.
Settlements would be done immediately, with no waiting periods. The costs of transactions would be only a fraction of a penny. The team further said that this
“embeds loyalty, offers, and rewards in the same messaging scheme which become building blocks for the future of commerce.”
Tech companies have spent years promising similar solutions to merchants but were never able to deliver on those promises. Meanwhile, merchants are always wanting to cultivate a deeper engagement with their customers. Solana Pay looks to solve these problems.
More than just paying with crypto
The project noted that the next phase of the protocol’s development will allow merchants to send digital assets back to consumers, which would open the doors to many new possibilities. However, the team also made sure to point out that this is bigger than simply allowing consumers to “pay with crypto.”
Instead, Team Solana envisions a future where all currencies are on-chain and used in a wide range of transactions. Solana Pay’s goal is to create a more advanced system that could replace the traditional payment systems that are currently in place, by offering a platform that supports both crypto and fiat currencies.
Merchants will be able to reward customers for shopping at their store. Customer loyalty can be rewarded with personalized offers, points programs, or unique virtual goods that merchants could send to customers alongside their physical purchases.
