Saturday, April 19, 2025

Can stablecoins save US freelancers from Venmo fee hike? Industry weighs in


Following information of cell fee service Venmo’s transaction payment hike, Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero recommended “a stablecoin funds app” for U.S-based freelancers. The PayPal-owned cell fee service’s new payment construction has resulted in neighborhood backlash.

Romero’s assertion posed stablecoins as the answer for “1099s.” This refers to staff topic to the U.S. Inner Income Service Kind 1099 — together with freelancers and impartial contractors.

Monetary analyst Ross Hendricks commented on Venmo’s improve in transaction charges in an X post on Might 23, stating, “[PayPal] simply flipped on the monetization swap for Venmo.”

One X consumer responded to Hendricks’ submit, sparking the narrative shift to crypto with three phrases:

“Crypto fixes this.”

This assertion was countered shortly after by Hendricks, who questioned the present state of cryptocurrency transfers. The co-founder of the Farcaster decentralized social community requested:

“What’s the shopper app with a whole bunch of tens of millions of customers that allows seamless, prompt crypto transfers freed from cost?”

Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, rapidly rose to the event, replying that the stablecoin Circle USD (USDC) on Base is “giving it a shot.”

Supply: Brian Armstrong

Previously a senior government at Coinbase, Romero remarked upon Armstrong’s response to the dialogue with one word:

“Based mostly”

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Hendricks recommended that “possibly issues might change” however expressed skepticism contemplating USDC being despatched by Coinbase “for on a regular basis transactions.”

This skepticism was adopted up by one other X consumer, stating:

“You simply described a terrific enterprise alternative. Yeah sending cash on Venmo to be robbed by PayPal or sending on Coinbase. Why pay 2.99% when you may pay nothing?”.

The dialogue follows Coinbase Chief Authorized Officer Paul Grewal’s announcement on May 23 that XRP was as soon as once more buying and selling on Coinbase in New York.

After the US Securities and Change Fee (SEC) filed a lawsuit in opposition to Ripple in 2020, many centralized exchanges, together with Coinbase, delisted XRP. The SEC accused Ripple Labs of promoting unregistered securities, main to those delistings.

Following Judge Analisa Torres’s 2023 ruling that secondary gross sales of XRP don’t qualify as securities transactions, centralized exchanges started to reverse their stance and relist the controversial digital asset.

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