EthCC | Payment narratives return! Solana Foundation Chairman: PayFi will rewrite the financial industry with "buy now, pay later"

Since 2009, cryptocurrency technology has been continuously evolving, with its wide range of applications attracting attention. The classic vision of Bitcoin payments is gradually fading into history. However, at this year's EthCC Ethereum Community Conference, the chair of the Solana Foundation brought the focus back to "payments," advocating for the popularization of the simplest but most important use case. She introduced the concept of PayFi.

What is PayFi?

PayFi was born to realize the original vision of cryptocurrency. According to Lily Liu, PayFi refers to programmable money, a new financial initiative built on top of the settlement layer that can autonomously handle payments. She believes that PayFi differs slightly from DeFi, where DeFi mostly involves trading and exchanging tokens, but the majority of financial activities actually involve purchasing goods and services. PayFi is not about transactions, it focuses on settlement time, representing the time value of money.

Applications of PayFi

New technologies create new markets. Through supporting scenarios like "Buy now, Pay Never," PayFi combines on-chain finance with real-time settlement capabilities, allowing profits generated in real-time on-chain finance to cover immediate consumption. An example in a retail scenario is a user putting $50 on-chain to earn interest, and the interest settlement and payment can be used to buy a "free" cup of coffee.

It can also support creative monetization based on progress towards goals. For example, a YouTuber can gradually receive ad revenue sharing, offer ticket financing, manage payment processing risks, and cultivate a global private credit pool on Solana as they reach 1 million views. Lily Liu believes that PayFi will surpass DeFi in the future, ushering in a new era in finance.

Solana and PayFi

Lily Liu mentioned that Solana stands out from other blockchains due to its high performance, consistently demonstrating fast transaction speeds and low costs, with advantages in capital and talent mobility. Clearly, Solana is a strong candidate for realizing the vision of PayFi.

Three Elements of Success for PayFi on a Blockchain

Lily Liu outlined three key conditions for blockchain success: fast and low-cost transactions, a wide user base, and a strong developer community. She believes that Solana is currently the only ecosystem that fully meets these three criteria.

The Future of PayFi and Solana

In the closing remarks, Lily Liu shared various use cases of financial applications on the Solana platform, including supply chain finance, payday loans, credit cards, corporate loans, interbank repurchase markets, and insurance markets. These examples highlight the immense potential of Solana combined with PayFi to revolutionize traditional financial systems in the future.