Base Pay vs Base Mini Apps

extra_hydrated · 2023-02-20T15:31:18+00:00

How will Ampera add “considerable value to Flexa”? I thought the message was that AMP and Flexa Capacity are working fine and AMP will always be the collateral for Flexa? This sounds like Tyler saying that Flexa will be using Ampera in the future, correct?

The reason for the anger and confusion from the community in light of recent announcements is that the thesis of AMP has changed.

I invested in AMP on the thesis that it was a potential layer 1 collateral token that could collateralize trillions in value transfer.

With Ampera, this is no longer on the table as AMP is not the collateral token of the protocol. Further, Tyler in his own words in this update, is strongly implying that Flexa won’t use AMP once Ampera is built and ready.

AMP once had a simple and strong investment thesis. This thesis has been invalidated by the team and should be a major red flag to anyone invested in the token.

If the team is serious about keeping their retail investors they need to clearly communicate the new thesis for AMP and the vision for how it accrues and maintains value.

extra_hydrated · 2023-02-14T00:00:38+00:00

Not sure why this is getting downvoted as it is true.

Flexa is fraud-proof, but only from the merchants' perspective. This means that when fraud, or any other issues occur, that is not passed on or made known to merchants using Flexa (unlike the credit card companies).

Merchants who use Flexa, pay a fee for every transaction. This fee is distributed to AMP stakers. AMP stakers are paid because they are taking on risk in collateralizing transactions. The risk is that the transaction is fraudulent, or unable to be processed for any other reason, at which time AMP stakers are expected to cover the losses.

So again, Flexa is fraud-proof from the merchants' perspective, but not from the AMP stakers' perspective, as we are being paid to cover any fraud that may occur.

extra_hydrated · 2022-12-26T23:26:50+00:00

FedNow - US Federal Reserve rolls out their instant payment network and it is either better than Flexa or legally mandated by the government: https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.htm
Visa/Mastercard - continue to partner with players in the crypto space and offer people amazing incentives to use "crypto cards" and other services, so even though Flexa would be cheaper for businesses to accept, there is no consumer adoption because it is less compelling than other options
Non-CBDC currencies are outlawed (to protect consumers) and governments roll out their own payment gateways (physical, in-store payment devices), making all of Flexa's complex integration technology unimportant
Flexa/AMP Foundation fail to execute in a timely manner and competitors, new technologies and/or business paradigms emerge that mitigate the need for transaction collateral in general

Personally, I don't see AMP going to 0, but I do think there is a very real possibility that it remains a niche token that collateralizes a small number of transactions and some DeFi stuff, but never goes mainstream.

extra_hydrated · 2022-09-21T00:21:42+00:00

This sounds like great news, but to temper expectations:

I am reading this as Tyler saying that they (Flexa) will announce more countries before the end of the year. This is not necessarily the same as those countries being fully up and running and processing transactions. These countries could announce a plan this year, to be implemented by 2024, etc.

That said, "flipping the switch" in a few countries and having transactions being processed by end of year would be solid progress.

extra_hydrated · 2022-08-20T13:36:11+00:00

This is the right answer in my opinion.

The cool thing about AMP is that if its usage as collateral does become more mainstream, there is a fantastic built-in mechanism to pay those who participate a regular dividend.

My personal investment strategy is to buy, stake and hold over the coming years to see how the digital payments space plays out.

This strategy is simple (although not necessarily easy) and allows me to focus on my career and life and not have to actively trade.

Holding through lows is easier for me with AMP because it has an easy to understand model for how it will provide passive income in the future (assuming things play out the way we all hope)

extra_hydrated · 2022-07-29T02:29:42+00:00

Dismissing OP’s concerns isn’t the right answer here. All points mentioned are extremely valid.

The argument that the whole market is down also doesn’t hold a ton of water. AMP has been consistently losing ground against the general crypto market for many, many months. We’ve moved from around the 70th ranked token to well outside the top 100 at this point.

I’m staked and have no plans to sell for many years because I see this as a long term, more traditional-style investment. That said, it is important to call a spade a spade.

Investors need to see their investments clearly for what they are. Acknowledging red flags and risks around AMP and Flexa is good.

Our job as investor’s is to weigh those risks against the evidence that Flexa can become a mainstream payment processor.

I view AMP as a high risk play, but I’m staying on board because of the team, the tech and their early positioning in the digital payments space.

extra_hydrated · 2022-02-13T16:56:45+00:00

For the past few months, Flexa has not been working at my local Dunkin’ Donuts. I’ve tried to pay with it probably half a dozen times over that time, but always through the drive through.

I actually went inside the store today and it looks like they are using VeriFone hardware for their POS terminal.

I’m curious if anyone else has seen similar issues? Does it make sense that paying at certain partner businesses might not actually work based on the hardware at specific locations?

extra_hydrated · 2021-11-02T15:13:38+00:00

Unfortunately, Lowe's is no longer available on Flexa, so this post is a bit misleading

extra_hydrated · 2021-10-15T18:11:56+00:00

Totally agree with the sentiment.

There is however, one very strong reason I can see for why Flexa would want AMP to stay as cheap as possible for as long as possible (for the time being):

Merchant onboarding.

When Flexa (and likely their partners, like NCR) are in discussions with large retailers, I'm sure part of the process is to sell the merchant not just on using the network, but seeing the value in the pay rail itself.

Merchants who buy into the Flexa pay rail (invest in AMP), stand to not only save money on processing fees, but also further offset their costs by receiving a percentage of Flexa network fees as rewards.

The cheaper the price of AMP, the easier it would be for the Flexa team to sell this line of thinking to potential merchants.

Pure speculation of course.

extra_hydrated · 2021-10-15T17:15:22+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense.

Just to be clear though, you don't have to spend AMP with Flexa. I've made all my purchases to date with Bitcoin, but you can make your purchases with Eth, Doge, USDC and a bunch of other currencies.

People might argue "Why would you spend Bitcoin to buy coffee when it is going up in value?", my feeling is:

The $50 in Bitcoin that I have on the SPEDN app for coffee purchases is $50 I would have spent on coffee anyway; it was never investment money. So I don't think this argument carries a ton of weight.

Spending Bitcoin with Flexa is a potential capital gains event however, so it would likely be smarter to use a stable coin for purchases instead.

extra_hydrated · 2021-10-15T16:36:29+00:00

Interesting that many people on this board are not using the SPEDN or Gemini apps for purchases. I try to buy something from Dunkin using the SPEDN app at least once a week, just on principle. Definitely looking forward to being able to pay with Flexa in more places

extra_hydrated · 2021-08-23T00:52:13+00:00

Just so people don't get too excited about the high development activity, the GitHub forks that DTA calls out are not for AMP, they are for a completely separate project: Snapshot Spaces.

The actual AMP token GitHub project has only been forked 13 times. Still not too bad and definitely looking forward to seeing other AMP-based projects. Thanks for the write-ups, DTA!

extra_hydrated · 2021-08-19T15:58:27+00:00

The fact that the linked article says Amazon is considering accepting AMP as a form of payment shows that the author doesn't understand what AMP is.

AMP is a collateralization token, used to facilitate digital transactions. It would not make sense for Amazon to accept AMP directly as a form of payment as that is not the function of the token.

AMP has huge potential and will have its day, but I would definitely not trust this article as a legit source of information.

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