Visa official envisions Bitcoin as the native currency of the internet

According to his recent statement, the Head of Crypto at Visa, Cuy Sheffield, believes that Bitcoin “Sats” might become the native unit of account on the internet. At least, he believes that they could be used for purchases below one cent. According to Sheffield, this could be the main use case where smaller BTC units could exceed fiat currencies.

It certainly seems like the credit card giant’s Head of Crypto has spent quite a lot of time thinking about Bitcoin and its future use cases. His tweet did not come on its own, but was, in fact, pushed on by another tweet, published by Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong.

Armstrong started a thread regarding the past, present, and the future of messaging and online payments. As a result, Sheffield started his own thread, commenting on Bitcoin’s potential when it comes to micropayments, especially with a functioning Lightning Network.

Bitcoin’s satoshi as the future of microtransactions

As part of his argument in favor of Bitcoin, Sheffield pointed out that there is nothing that people can currently buy online for under one penny. He then pointed out that such purchases could easily be made by using Bitcoin as a payment method. He noted that streaming money might become a way in which online content creators would receive their payments in the next 5-10 years. If this takes place, he predicts that even people who do not care about Bitcoin would still be willing to use Sats (satoshis) to pay for online content.

This may include things like streaming videos, tipping online articles, or even listening to music. All of this could be paid via small amounts of satoshi — not so much that people would not be able to afford, and yet enough for content creators to be more directly rewarded for their efforts.

He envisions the internet where satoshi payments would be able to remove ads, tip influencers, join private messaging groups, and more. And, with the amounts being potentially the only 100th of a cent, users will not care about volatility or spending their satoshis.

Meanwhile, in the fiat currency department, the lowest amount that anyone could use to tip or donate is a cent, which might still be too large for such use. Alternatively, the US Government would have to create a sub-cent in order to match Bitcoin’s potential, and then have developers adopt it on a global scale.