Is Blockchain Payments Integration in Messenger Apps Good for Crypto?

Many cryptocurrency analysts and industry representatives are predicting that the increasing integration of blockchain payments with messenger apps will comprise the catalyst for the next wave of mainstream distributed ledger technology adoption.

Critics are warning that the blockchain payments integrated with messenger apps may undermine many of the core values underpinning cryptocurrency.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Bill Barhydt, the CEO and founder of financial services firm Abra, stated that messenger applications "Probably represent the single best consumer-facing interface for cryptocurrency-based payments available today."

"Messenger based payments will only succeed if messenger apps truly integrate payments into the core user experience the way WeChat has done in China. That is not at all an issue of crypto, DLT or even banks, it's an issue of commitment to proper design around the 'send money' use case which most messaging apps have shown a complete inability to grasp to date. Once they accomplish this users will send money via messenger apps if it's easy."

On Aug. 20, 2019, Reuters published a report citing anonymous sources who claimed that the Facebook-owned messenger WhatsApp has entered into talks with several leading Indonesian digital payments firms.

The announcement follows this year's announcement from the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, that WhatsApp payments will soon be rolled out in "Some countries," with the Facebook representative adding: "As Mark has said earlier this year, we are looking to bring digital payments to more countries."

Due to the strict financial regulation in Indonesia, it is rumored that WhatsApp's payment platform will exclusively support payments via local digital wallets.

Facebook is seen as the company that is best positioned to capture a significant market share of the blockchain payments industry by integrating DLT with messenger app services in the West.

"If crypto fails to do this, then the payments space will belong to large socialized social networking companies just like it has traditionally belonged to banks."

While Tencent and Alibaba's owner, Ant Financial, appears to be unconcerned by Libra, its platforms' dominance over China's payments sector may soon face stiff competition from a different blockchain-based payments platform being built by the Chinese central bank, the People's Bank of China.