A Six-Month Observation Following My Conversation with Four Bitget Wallet Executives
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A Six-Month Observation Following My Conversation with Four Bitget Wallet Executives
Cryptocurrency Payments Are Being “Forgotten”
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: kajiQ
Heidegger discussed a seemingly trivial observation in Being and Time:
When a hammer works well, the person using it does not “see” the hammer itself—they see the nail, the wooden board being nailed, the construction project nearing completion. Only when the hammer breaks, feels unwieldy, or gets stuck does one suddenly become aware of the hammer as an independent object.
This insight applies broadly—and also to payments.
When you swipe your card at a convenience store or scan a QR code at the corner shop, you don’t consciously register that you’re relying on a vast financial infrastructure: issuing banks, clearing networks, cross-border foreign exchange systems—all operating seamlessly behind the scenes, invisible to you.
Cryptocurrency payments, however, remain in a different state.
A person buying coffee with USDT still pauses before paying to ask:
- Does this shop accept it?
- Will the payment go through?
A traveler paying for an Uber ride with a Bitget Wallet U Card might even post about it on X (formerly Twitter) afterward.
It remains something people must pause to consider before using—and something worth noting after using.
Like credit cards in the 1950s or Alipay in 2013, it’s midway between “novelty” and “everyday tool.”
Today, Bitget Wallet is accelerating that journey—on streets across three continents.
This transition is still underway—but across 100 million real users, the shift from “being discussed” to “being used without notice” has already progressed significantly.
To accelerate this further, Bitget Wallet and Stellar have jointly launched the PayFi Odyssey campaign—a $300,000 XLM-equivalent reward program spanning over 35 countries and regions across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, running until the end of July 2026.
This is Bitget Wallet’s largest cross-regional user incentive initiative to date centered around PayFi.
We’ll dive deeper below.
Payments: A History of Gradual Disappearance
Looking back at the history of payments reveals an intriguing pattern:
The moment a new mainstream payment medium matures is precisely when all the extraneous thoughts surrounding it vanish.
When credit cards first appeared, people worried:
- Would plastic money encourage overspending?
- Would a cashless society be safe?
No one asks these questions today.
They disappeared into the act of swiping.
The same happened with Alipay and WeChat Pay.
Between 2013 and 2015, people repeatedly debated:
- Is it truly secure?
- What if funds held by a third party were compromised?
Today, a Shanghai resident ordering takeout opens Alipay directly—without a second thought.
Those concerns vanished into the act of scanning.
People certainly know what currency or payment method they’re using.
What fades from memory are the extra layers of mental friction attached to a new payment method:
- Is it safe?
- Will the merchant accept it?
- Will it succeed?
- What if it fails?
- How does the underlying mechanism work?
When those thoughts gradually dissolve—leaving only the clean, singular choice of “what to pay with”—a payment method has truly entered daily life.
And Bitget Wallet is systematically removing each of those thoughts, one by one.
Subtraction: The Bitget Wallet Philosophy
This transformation begins most directly within the team itself.
A Bitget Wallet colleague told me:
In the past, upon arriving in Hong Kong, he’d instinctively do two things:
- Exchange currency for HKD
- Purchase an Octopus Card
This year, he no longer does either.
He takes a taxi straight from the airport to his hotel.
For meals and shopping at 7-Eleven, he uses WeChat Pay, Alipay, or Uber—end to end.
The first time he did this, after showing his payment QR code at a cha chaan teng in Central, he paused instinctively for a few seconds:
Did it go through?
Now, that pause has vanished entirely.
He said:
“The Bitget Wallet U Card is already sufficient for everyday domestic spending—meals, rides, food delivery, AI subscriptions. I don’t feel any difference compared to other cards.”
The change occurred where he couldn’t see it.
What flows behind the scenes is now stablecoins.
Asking Users to Learn Nothing New
This reveals something deeper than merely “crypto payments becoming more convenient.”
For crypto payments to enter daily life isn’t about users learning something new.
It’s about that new thing dissolving into everything users already use—including:
- Apple Pay
- Visa
- Mastercard
- PromptPay
- VietQR
Bitget Wallet doesn’t ask users to:
- Change their habits
- Memorize a new brand
- Learn a new QR code standard
It simply lets stablecoins flow like water through existing pipes.
Technology Reverse-Engineered from User Pain Points
This approach is crystal clear to CEO Karry.
He observed:
“For a long time, the Web3 industry resembled people walking around with hammers, searching for nails—‘I have this technology, so where can I apply it?’ Bitget Wallet flips that logic entirely: Start from users’ needs, then select the right technology.”
For example:
Users don’t want to remember seed phrases
→ Use TEE + Social Login
Users don’t want to feel gas fees
→ Use EIP-7702 to pay gas in stablecoins
Users don’t want to copy long wallet addresses
→ Enable link-based transfers
Users don’t want to worry whether merchants accept crypto
→ Bitget Wallet Card
No New Rails—Just Stablecoins on Existing Ones
This logic is especially evident in Latin America.
Brazil has a mature Pix payment network.
Bitget Wallet didn’t try to rebuild the payment stack from scratch.
Instead, it integrated directly with Pix.
Users:
- Still scan Pix QR codes
- Still use Pix as usual
The only change happens behind the scenes: settlement occurs in stablecoins.
This is the single most essential sentence capturing Bitget Wallet’s entire payment strategy:
Don’t invent new rails—let stablecoins run on the rails that already exist.
The Invisible Coordination Layer
Powering all this is Bitget Wallet’s:
Onchain Payments Matrix
A payment coordination layer connecting:
- Blockchains
- Stablecoin issuers
- Card networks
- Clearing banks
- Local payment networks
- Merchant systems
It:
- Does not issue tokens
- Does not rebuild settlement infrastructure
- Does not replace financial infrastructure
It does just one thing:
Enable previously isolated participants to coordinate and operate seamlessly together.
Growth in Emerging Markets
This year:
Daily active users of Bitget Wallet’s QR code payments have grown nearly tenfold year-on-year.
But the strongest growth isn’t happening in New York or London.
It’s happening in emerging markets.
Examples:
Argentina
Long-term local currency depreciation has made stablecoins a de facto store of value for residents.
Venezuela
USD-pegged stablecoins have become tangible, everyday stores of value.
Remote Workers Across Latin America
A New York company hires an employee in Argentina.
Salary via SWIFT:
- Slow
- Expensive
Salary via stablecoin:
- Fast
- Low-cost
So stablecoins naturally become the default choice.
These users aren’t adopting crypto out of Web3 enthusiasm.
Quite the opposite.
They simply need:
- A reliable way to hold USD value
- A seamless way to spend it
That’s all.
PayFi Odyssey: One Summer, Three Continents
For tools to move from being talked about to being used, real people must use them repeatedly.
PayFi Odyssey is designed to make exactly that happen.
Total prize pool:
$300,000 in XLM-equivalent value
Coverage:
35 countries and regions across Asia, Africa, and Latin America
Track 1: U Card
Prize pool:
$200,000 in XLM-equivalent value
Duration:
May 26 – July 7
Users earn points by:
- Applying for a card
- Making card-based purchases
- Completing on-chain tasks on the Stellar network
Rewards are distributed proportionally based on final point balances.
Track 2: QR Code Payments
Prize pool:
$100,000 in XLM-equivalent value
Coverage:
- Singapore
- Vietnam
- Brazil
- Argentina
…and nine other markets—totaling 11.
Local QR code ecosystems are already mature in these regions.
Stablecoins simply need to integrate seamlessly.
Track 3: Crypto Survival Plan
Prize pool:
$100,000 in XLM-equivalent value
Targeted at:
- Asia
- Africa
- Latin America
KOL recruitment drive.
Participants document, via video and interviews:
How crypto payments enable real-world consumption.
Unified hashtag:
#StellarPayFiOdyssey
The Afternoon That No Longer Needs Remembering
Electricity hasn’t disappeared from public discourse.
Yet when people flip a light switch, they no longer fear electrocution.
The internet hasn’t vanished from conversation.
Yet when people unlock their phones, they no longer wonder whether the network will connect.
Both still exist.
But the mental friction surrounding them has dissolved.
Crypto payments are following the same path.
A year ago, that Bitget Wallet colleague would still check whether a payment had gone through.
Now he doesn’t.
A year ago, he’d still exchange currency for Thai Baht before traveling to Thailand.
Now he doesn’t.
A year ago, he didn’t know the Bitget Wallet Card could be added to Apple Pay.
Now it’s fully embedded in his daily subway tap.
Each is a step in the disappearance of mental friction.
And PayFi Odyssey aims to replicate this process in more places:
- A café in Bangkok
- A household in Manila
- A market in Lagos
- An e-hailing ride in Buenos Aires
Every repetition makes crypto payments:
Less of a topic.
More of a habit.
The $300,000 Bitget Wallet is deploying isn’t really about rewards—it’s about something far simpler:
One day, a user taps their card and buys a cup of coffee.
Their mind holds only one thought:
“Use Bitget Wallet.”
Not:
“Is this thing trustworthy?”
At that moment, crypto payments will finally be “forgotten.”
Just as that Bitget Wallet colleague taps Apple Pay while heading downstairs for lunch—and doesn’t think of Bitget Wallet at all.
That, precisely, is the company’s most fundamental—and hardest-won—achievement over the past two years.
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