What is Metal Pay?
Metal is a peer-to-peer crypto payment application similar to PayPal – only it's focused on crypto. To explain Metal Pay, let's take a journey back to 2016. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of breakthroughs, it was the age of foolishness.
Ethereum was one year old, and most of the cryptocurrencies were based on Bitcoin's model. In this bleak environment, Metal launched a mobile app for crypto payments. And their timing couldn't be better. Few competitors were even thinking about launching a similar product, and crypto users were eager to transact digital assets as a means of payment.
Back then, the concept of DeFi and DAOs was non-existent. Metal started with a centralized infrastructure that can facilitate payments all over the globe. It was a simple use-case that immediately gained traction. The company ran their own blockchain nodes, so all the user had to do was create a wallet with Metal, and transact all over the globe.
Metal is a company registered in San Francisco as a payment provider. This means Metal has to comply with KYC and AML requirements, so to identify fraud. But for the regular users, this was a small inconvenience in order to be able to spend their hard-earned crypto. Moreover, by creating an account with Metal Pay, users gain an FDIC-insured Cash wallet with its own account and routing number. Overall, the user experience on Metal is similar to apps like Venmo and Square.
Due to its centralized nature, Metal stores all users' photographs, credit card info and pictures of identifying documents in its database. Although the Metal protocol has never been hacked, its architecture creates another weak link, the database with users' info.
In 2017, Metal ran its ICO and raised $10M from retail and institutional investors. With fresh funding, Metal went on to expand their products and proceeded to create utility for its MTL token. MTL started out as a reward token for carrying out transactions on Metal Pay, earning users 5% in MTL per crypto transfer. Later on, MTL became the governance token for Metal DAO.
Metal DAO is one of the first legally compliant DAOs in existence. The Metal DAO uses Proof-of-Processed-Payments (PoPP) as a KYC identification tool. Hence, the Metal DAO could comply with banking regulations. The value of MTL is derived from the collective userbase, who earn MTL on transactions and become shareholders in the Metal DAO.
How does Metal Pay work?
Metal works by bridging the world of crypto with fiat currencies. How many times have you though about spending your crypto in real life? Instead of using a Bitcoin ATM, now you can cash out your crypto directly via Metal Pay and spend your sats in the form of bucks. The platform converts your crypto into fiat, which is then deposited to your Metal credit card for spending.
As mentioned before, Metal uses Proof-of-Processed-Payments (PoPP) to stay compliant. You can think of it as a human-powered Proof of Work. PoPP acts as a provable way of identifying users and distributing MTL to their accounts. When a payment is settled, a portion of the gross amount of the payment is returned in MTL. The amount received is up to 5% of the volume of the transaction at trading value for MTL in either direction (sender/receiver).
Metal Vaults
Metal Vaults was the first application built by Metal. It is a web wallet for Metal, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and ERC20 tokens. With more than 65 supported tokens,Metal Vault is FDIC insured. The FDIC protects your money in the unlikely event of a bank failure. The insurance is up to $250,000 per depositor.
Metal Pay
Metal Pay is the mobile app for peer-to-peer payments. The app has undergone incremental improvements since launch. At first sight, the experience is similar with apps like Venmo or PayPal. The difference is that you get rewarded in MTL for transacting on Metal Pay.
Over time, Metal Pay will introduce Shopify-style integrations, where merchants can instantly convert crypto payments into fiat to avoid price volatility.
Proton Blockchain
Over time, Metal Pay has integrated more services under its umbrella. One of them is Proton (XPR), a custom blockchain that facilitates fast and gas-free transactions for payments.
Proton (XPR) works as a bridge between fiat accounts and Web3 transactions. In other words, their blockchain can be used for paying merchants, or using crypto within apps much like Revolut or Visa.
Importantly, Proton is a permissioned blockchain. This means users are verified, and Proton validators can censor transactions if requested by the authorities. It is a necessary approach as Proton is intended to work for financial institutions, which are heavily regulated.
As a regular user, you can send XRP transactions without undergoing KYC. Using their apps, however, requires getting verified on the app.
Proton uses Delegated Proof of Stake consensus to secure its network. Validators are randomly chosen for a limited time to validate incoming transaction requests, and their chance of validating blocks is directly tied to the XRP staked.
In this economic system, Proton is able to validate transaction at a much faster speed than permissionless blockchains, albeit it sacrifices on decentralization. Currently, Proton can process 4000 tps/s with a finality of 3 seconds.
Overall, Proton integrates Web3 features like liquidity pools, swaps, and digital identity into the traditional financial system. With a user-friendly interface, Proton emphasizes regulatory compliance and interoperability.
Proton Loan
Proton loan is a product branch out of the Proton blockchain. As its name implies, users can take instant crypto loans at competitive rates. Because the lending activity is regulated by smart contracts, lenders can withdraw their funds without asking for permission.
Proton's lending service is based on liquidity pools, where lenders deposit and borrowers take out loans. In order to take a loan, borrowers must first deposit collateral into the protocol. This ensures lenders get paid in case the collateral drops below a certain threshold.
The interest rates are calculated based on the liquidity utilization. When demand for liquidity is high, lenders earn more attractive rates as their tokens are more valuable to the borrowers. Conversely, when the demand for a crypto asset drops, so does the interest rate for that specific token pair.
As of 2023, liquidity on Proton Loan has been hovering above $2M, indicating there is demand for loans on their platform.
Proton Loan also has its native token, called LOAN. It is a governance token that grants holder access to the voting forum. LOAN holders can collectively vote to adjust the interest rates for certain crypto assets, or modify the collateral requirements.
How to make money on Metal?
The main method of making money on Metal Pay is my making transactions on their app. The first step is to onboard on the app and complete KYC. Once you've completed a payment, MTL tokens are issued as a reward and incentive to the transaction.
For each transfer, the sender and recipient receive up to 5% of their payment value in MTL. As an example, if $100 is sent and MTL is trading at $5.00, both sender and receiver receive 1 MTL.
Metal Pay has a lot more money making opportunities form its DeFi products. Just like any other DeFi protocol, users can put their crypto at work and do a series of financial operations on Proton blockchain.
Proton DEX
Proton DEX offers users anything from quick swaps, to liquidity pools and farming pools. Users who have interacted with other DeFi protocols may find higher APRs on Proton because the protocol caters to Web3 newcomers. Here, you can find pools with an APR as much as 25% and farms that pay handsomely for adding XPR liquidity.
For a better user experience, it is recommended to use the Proton wallet. Their native wallet makes it easier to access the full suite of features such as staking and getting verified.
Here's how you add liquidity on Proton blockchain:
Open the Proton DeFi app
Click on the "Pools" tab
Select the asset you want to deposit and the amount
Click deposit
Approve the transaction
Notice that for depositing liquidity into the protocol, Proton is also rewarding you with XPR tokens. These tokens can be staked, or deposited into liquidity pools for even more gains.
Upon depositing on the Proton LP pools, you will be credited with LP tokens that represent your position in the liquidity pool. These tokens can be deposited into Proton's farms for even more rewards.
Here's how you farm on Proton blockchain:
Open the Proton DeFi app
Click on the "Farms" tab
Select the farm you want to deposit with and the amount of LP tokens
Click deposit
Approve the transaction
The protocol rewards users for farming with XPR tokens. Funds can be withdrawn at any time along with the rewards. If you feel like trading with a portion of your gains, you can do it directly via the Proton DEX. Their interface uses the orderbook model – the best part is you don't have to pay any gas fees.
Proton Lend
Proton Lend gives user the option to earn passive income by lending their crypto assets. In order to use the lending service, users have to first download the Proton wallet and get verified.
In addition to the APR from loans, users also get rewarded with LOAN tokens. These tokens can be used to participate in the governance process, and they can also be staked for even more LOAN token rewards.
Price Prediction for Metal Pay — Can it hit $1000?
Buying and hodling MTL — the native token of Metal — is one way of potentially making money on Metal.
By looking at its current price, it’s natural to think about the chance of MTL hitting $1000 per token. This can happen sooner, or way in the future, and is determined by a couple of ever changing factors.
Let’s examine the potential growth of the MTL token by analyzing its tokenomics. MTL’s current market cap sits comfortably at ${MARKET_CAP}. With {CIRCULATING_SUPPLY} MTL tokens being in circulation today, that means a price of {PRICE} per MTL.
How did we come to that calculation? It’s quite easy, the price of a MTL token is equal to its current market cap divided by the number of tokens in circulation. Dividing ${MARKET_CAP} by {CIRCULATING_SUPPLY} gives us a result of {PRICE} for each MTL coin.
By changing the order in the simple formula above we can use it to calculate other things as well. This helps us a lot because we can deduce the market cap of MTL at different token prices. Then, we can use the result to compare it to the current state of the network and see what would be required for MTL to hit that price.
At a price of $1000 per token, that means the current market cap of MTL would equal ${{CIRCULATING_SUPPLY} * 1000}. Remember that we arrived at this number by multiplying the amount of circulating tokens by $1000.
Now let’s shift our attention to the fully diluted market cap.
Some blockchains may have their tokenomics built in a way that only a small percentage of tokens are circulating at the beginning. This can be misleading because we don’t have the full picture and only take into account the current number of coins released in the market.
The fully diluted market cap represents the total value of a coin if all tokens were in circulation. MTL’s whole supply of tokens is {MAX_SUPPLY - TOTAL_SUPPLY + CIRCULATING_SUPPLY} MTL which means that no more coins above that number will ever be created.
These tokens are not created at the discretion of a specific entity. They are created automatically by the network to reward different actors that keep it secure.
How does this impact the price of MTL? Taking into account the current price of a MTL token, that would result in a fully diluted market cap of ${MAX_SUPPLY - TOTAL_SUPPLY + CIRCULATING_SUPPLY * PRICE}. MTL coins that have been burned are not taken into consideration because they have been permanently removed from circulation.
Whether it seems gigantic or not, the number we came to above only takes into account the current price of a MTL token. Doing the same calculation but with a price of $1000 gives us a result of ${{MAX_SUPPLY - TOTAL_SUPPLY + CIRCULATING_SUPPLY} * 1000} for the MTL protocol fully diluted market cap.
These are all crucial details to know when calculating if MTL can reach the price of $1000 per token. If the diluted market capitalization is way too high, the token has little room left to grow. Blockchains in general have no cap on the value they can reach, whether that number seems possible it’s totally up to you.
The future of MTL depends solely on its growth as a network used by tens and hundreds of millions of users.
If you’re looking to add some MTL to your portfolio, the most trusted places to get some are Binance and Coinbase.
