How does crypto reach a billion people?

The simple answer is stablecoins.

Consumer apps like Airbnb, Uber, and Upwork will enable stablecoin payments for their hosts, drivers, and freelancers.

Stablecoins bring down payment costs down by over 70%.

Uber currently distributes $100B+ to its drivers every year and spends ~$2B in fees. With stablecoins, they can bring their fees down 95% to $100M.

Airbnb distributes $65B to its hosts every year and spends ~$1.3B in fees. With stablecoins, they can bring their fees down to ~$60M.

How do they roll this out in practice? Companies like Uber, Airbnb, Upwork, Etsy, and Deel will set up wallets for millions of users on the supply side of their marketplace. i.e. hosts for Airbnb, drivers for Uber, freelancers for Upwork.

They will start their rollout with users in LatAm, Africa, and Southeast Asia, i.e. regions where people would rather get paid in stablecoins than local currency.

The benefit for users is access to stable currency and access to yield on their stablecoin balance.

When every end user has a native wallet provided by consumer apps, these apps will start to provide financial services. For example, Uber can provide banking services to their drivers via their consumer wallet. Uber can offer drivers yield on their stablecoin balance. They can also offer loans based on driver income.