Can you count in satoshis? What if I told you it was in your best interest to do so? How much would it take for you to learn?
In this article I'm going to argue for merchants to undercost their goods by listing alternative prices in BCH satoshis. That is, to specifically take less profit on each sale they secure through BCH transfer as a means to incentivize the use of BCH.
This process has a logic to it, but I must say that I am not an expert. I will not be able to provide a useful method of developing these pricing techniques. Pricing goods is a complicated process and a lot of effort will need to be put into developing this sort of system.
First of all, each specific locale would need its own pricing Oracle. This concept should be familiar to you, but if not, an Oracle is an on-chain method of determining information about things happening off-chain. But here, the Oracle would most likely need to be a group of people that aggregate hard-goods price data and correlate that with BCH market movements. A network of merchants or supply chains in some locality that are all committed to accepting and growing BCH as a payment system would all have a common interest in providing each other accurate data, for example.
This is built on the expectation that BCH will follow a similar path of adoption as BTC. Institutional interest in BCH would reward the savvy merchant that has built up their stores of BCH by such methods.
Supply chains built with BCH payment methods in place allow for ease of payment and come with built-in immutable accounting, operating without bleeding value into other institutions that might not have the same interests.
Back to the mechanics of pricing. The key element here is an understanding of potential market movements. Pricing weighted toward or against an expected market movement could help a local economy absorb crypto price volatility. We see these sorts of hedging measures in many markets. It is not beyond the scope of an Oracle to aid in this sort of system.
A merchant group would most likely look for a satoshi pricing system that allowed for ease of understanding for consumers unfamiliar with crypto currencies. Perhaps the aim would be a satoshi price that did not change very often, even though, by our market currency pair understanding, each satoshi could change drastically in value.
Again I would stress the concept of savings. The merchant is saving in many ways by using BCH, and that savings should be passed on to the consumer. It must be obvious that this new way of transacting is good for all parties.
The necessity for these sorts of decisions to remain in each merchant's hands is obvious, and we can expand this also to the merchant's suppliers, and those other merchants in the locality that may have mutual benefit from an increase in satisfactory business in the area. Low prices drive business and support the movement of money. Now imagine if that money never ends up going into a vault somewhere.
The ultimate goal, then, would be a slowly expanding self-sufficient BCH economy that uses the benefits gained from transacting on the BCH blockchain to build advantage and gain value. Short term loss of optimal profit pays off in appreciation on BCH holdings.
This is not simple, but the necessary infrastructure is already here. Oracles are being built for many platforms with diverse uses. We can start doing this now.
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