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Women are dominating crypto shopping in Korea

The most frequently purchased items are coffee, baby wipes, clothes, and other necessities.
Written by Eileen Brown, Contributor

Blockchain payments allow anyone to buy anything -- and women are dominating this shopping space.

Cryptocurrencies have the potential to transform the financial landscape. Price volatility remains a significant barrier for mass adoption and uncertainty. But one company has come up with a decentralized stablecoin, which is intended to become a new global currency

South Korean-based blockchain payments system Terra has recently launched a payment app that allows anyone with a bank account to seamlessly buy using the frictionless payment app. Coupons are automatically applied to any purchase.

Incorporated in Singapore in 2018, Terra is a protocol of money that ensures price stability by expanding and contracting supply algorithmically. It intends to become an open platform for disruptive financial dApps and grow the GDP of the blockchain economy. 

Bitcoin's extreme price volatility is an issue for its adoption. No one wants to pay with a currency that has the potential to double in value in a few days, or wants to be paid in a currency if its value can significantly decline before the transaction is settled.

Terra wants mainstream users to buy in crypto. On its first day, 11,000 users added their bank accounts to start paying with blockchain technology. For Bitcoin, the value of a currency as a medium of exchange is mainly driven by its network effects. For any new digital currency to become successful, it needs to maximize user adoption to become useful.

Given the proper infrastructure and UX design, the ability to penetrate a mainstream market is tangible for the blockchain world. Terra is backed by Luna, the mining token that powers Terra's DPoS blockchain. 

It has launched with an alliance of commerce platforms, with $25 billion in annual transaction volume and 45 million customers. Terra's technology works at the back-end; all users need to do is add their bank account and then proceed with any purchase they want.

Within a month of its launch, Terra's South Korean mobile payments platform CHAI, powered by blockchain technology, became the fourth most-popular finance app on the AppStore, and the 13th-most popular on Google Play. It reached over 240,000 users in its first 40 days -- who are now buying everyday basic needs with crypto through the app.

CHAI delivers the payment gateway for reliable, fraud-resistant transactions, and settlement with merchants. It eliminates the need for 'middlemen' transaction brokers and streamlines the purchase, offering discounts at checkout time.

Terra's goal is to become the largest payments network in Asia over the next three years, according to Crypto News.

There are some interesting consumer habits on Terra. Three out of four users (74.04%) are women in their late 30s and early 40s. They are paying with Terra the most, even though men dominate the larger blockchain and crypto industry. The most frequently purchased items are coffee, baby wipes, clothes, and other necessities.

In the last six months, Terra has hit several additional milestones. It has on-boarded 25 ecommerce partners across 10 countries, with $40 billion in collective GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume).

It has also partnered with the government of Mongolia to digitize its outdated financial infrastructure with blockchain technology.

Co-founder of Terra, Daniel Shin, comments on the trend of mainstream adoption of blockchain technology:

During the last 40 days, Terra's blockchain technology has been used to power 380,000 transactions for more than 240,000 users. The other day, we hit a record-high daily transaction volume of 1 billion in KRW (South Korean Won), which implies a $300 million USD transaction volume run rate.

Lack of users has always been a sore thumb for the blockchain industry, which is why these numbers are extremely meaningful and show that penetrating a mainstream market is not an impossible mission for the blockchain world.

That's why even though blockchain has been considered a male-dominant industry, people using Terra's blockchain technology to buy everyday goods and services reflect the more general population who frequently use eCommerce platforms like TMON -- females in their 30s and 40s.

We are excited to continue to grow and become the major driving force for blockchain mass adoption.

Terra may be a frictionless form of payment, but I think I would like to watch my actual bank account more closely when I am parting with my hard-earned cash for something. Not noticing bitcoin price fluctuations that change at the instant I bought all those coffees could become very expensive for me in the long run.

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