If the design is simple enough, could we not build something like this for Grin? It’s like a glorified forum for make and take offers. The trick though is that it’s laser focused on just providing on/off ramps to and from national currencies.
With it being so narrowly focused, the UX could be smoothed out quite a bit to be very simple. Think of a server browser vs quickplay in a multiplayer game.
“Okay I have Grin, now what do I do with it?”
Spend it
Exchange it for your national currency
Option 1 is cool, but it’s also potentially much harder than 2. With 1, you need to set up business infrastructure, make products people actually want, or do a gift card exchange thing. Gift cards are actually cool if you can do big companies. But I’m wondering if option 2 is potentially more simple.
I hesitate to send my friends grin because I know they will in all likelihood be stuck with it or it’ll be too much of a pain to swap it out for USD. Centralized exchanges are okay, but not easy to build upon in terms of optimizing the UX.
This would probably be perfect to build directly into Goblin since it already has Nostr integrated actually. Next to the Send/Receive tab on the bottom, a Trade tab (that would actually mirror Cash App kinda)? Or maybe just call it buy/withdraw? And the app can automatically generate a new random nostr identity for your trades so it’s separate from your personal send/receive
Converting Grin to CNY has proven quite challenging, and I’m curious about the situation for other fiat currencies. Even on centralized exchanges, swapping virtual currency for CNY is difficult. Exchanges do not hold real e-CNY; all CNY settlements are conducted via off-exchange OTC trades. Once the exchange confirms receipt of the CNY payment, the tokens will be credited to the account.
Especially on centralized exchanges. The robosats approach is just use one of the many ways of trading goods for national currency. Just treat the exchange like you’re buying something from a garage sale.
Having said that, the drawback is of course the low liquidity and the limitations on the ways of trading goods for national currencies.
The only true way to on/off ramp into fiat is for a community member to act as a bank, take grin deposits and physically mail people cash, probably completely illegal but what isn’t?
There are alternatives.
Safetrade is a crypto project with its own fiat on off ramp that might be a good fit for grin. They listed/support other worthwhile crypto projects without listing fee.
Other projects like Verus (also listed for free on Safetrade) are exploring options for their own fiat on/off-ramp. I am not saying we should make our own, but instead we should explore working with like minded projects that facilitate exchange.