Imagine paying for your Walmart merchandise through a crypto wallet that holds money in the form of a Walmart-issued stablecoin—let’s call it WUSD. Say you make a purchase of $100. If you pay with your credit card, Walmart would lose about $2.50 to Visa or Mastercard in interchange fees. On the other hand, if you paid using WUSD, there would be no associated fees, allowing Walmart to potentially pass on the savings in fees to customers in the form of discounts or lower prices. Additionally, the settlement would be almost instantaneous, meaning Walmart would get the money immediately and could start to earn interest on it.
How would you get hold of WUSD? You’d buy it, possibly through the Walmart app. To the consumer, it could look like regular money or store credit that’s stored on the app. But on the app’s back end, it would be a cryptocurrency run on blockchain technology. The business case for this payment method: savings for the merchant and the consumer in the form of reduced fees.
Whether or not retailers like Walmart and Amazon go down this road will depend, to a great extent, on the fate of the GENIUS Act. If it passes into law, the road would be clear for these companies to design and implement stablecoins. If it doesn’t pass into law, the regulatory hurdles, uncertainty and risk may force them to shelve any stablecoin plans for now.
Canadians can now buy XRP via an ETF
Canadian ETF investors have a few more crypto ETFs to choose from. You can now buy and sell spot ETFs of XRP—the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
While bitcoin is digital gold and ethereum is a platform for decentralized applications, XRP is a utility token that enables fast and low-cost cross-border payments. A utility token is a cryptocurrency built to serve a specific purpose. Built by U.S.-based Ripple Labs, XRP is not just a concept—it’s actually used by some financial institutions as part of their cross-border payment services, such as remittance payments.
Here’s some key information about the XRP ETFs currently trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Crypto price swings are common
Cryptocurrencies are speculative and highly volatile assets that are subject to significant price swings. Even stablecoins may not be “safe” if not backed adequately by real-world assets.
Investing in bitcoin and other crypto coins carries significant market, technological and regulatory risks. Invest in crypto only if it aligns with your investment goals, time horizon and risk profile, and stay vigilant about crypto scams.
