New Real Life Utility with Crypto - Does it Work?

3 days ago an old friend from #teammalaysia (who knew this was my dream to see web3 come to pass for average people's independence in finance via crypto) approached me to try this out.

And to make this more interesting, this is actually started from a #filipino community which I think is really awesome!

(It also gives us a good tight slap that we should not be lazy before other countries actually surpasses in knowledge and capability for the sake of our future generations.

But actually I am glad that our neighbour did it because our lazy arse young people in Malaysia on crypto only concentrate on trading and short term profit)

I digress!

Let's get back into how this project could really work.

First look

The site is impressive; and moreover the biggest selling point here is the main page tells the (potential) users, "we can resolve your real life issues".

Everyone can live without luxurious items, but their worries will be settling the most basic necessities in life - utility bills. This site had already covered the 2 most important marketing points to satisfy the customer. Kudos to that!

Now let's see if it can be done - for mobile top up

(because the last time wowApp had such an offer it didn't really work)

The interface looks clean and decent and just so happened I have a prepaid number I can test on, I have decided to give it a try as little as $1.25 worth of USDC with a bit of MATIC gas fees.

The more impressive part is that there are already a good few South East Asian countries including India and Bangladesh is already acceptable. This is truly a project for (strong tenacity) real world people with real life struggles.

The biggest signature that this is made by the Philippines (for me) is definitely the indication of $PGX and $VIS. The hype and momentum of Pegaxy that was built by the Filipino community was so impactful that to place those 2 tokens there first signifies their love for the game-fi and also the usability it gives.

I'd love to pay with $SAND but with the much potential growth for sandbox, I'd rather keep it to stake at the moment (since I don't have much either)

The obvious choice has come down to stablecoins, where there will be less conversion from token > stablecoin > local currency

(but that would be my guess)

To be honest, throughout 2 decades of what I know about Celcom, this telco is always one of the first to step into new ways for technology involvement. I am glad though the coverage isn't as good as before (because too many competitors with all the tower repeaters) this telco is still standing strong.

Good thing I still have a tiny bit of balance to test out the minimum payment!

Once the information is filled up and as long as my wallet has enough USDC and Matic (for gas fees), I am good to go!

You literally can see the benefits of using Polygon during the bear market at this point of time. Thank God for Layer 2!

However, this is an interesting clause that was placed there. For the sake of the transaction, especially it is on Beta testing, it is best not to tweak the GWEI gas fees in the wallet.

With Polygon at this bear market, even not adjusting the fees is pretty decent, moreover part of the gas fees is burnt. (If I gather it correctly)

Sign the contract, and that's it!

You can also press "View Transactions" to see whether the transfer was successful

So far, it has been quite seamless, and especially when the network traffic is not being tweaked / manipulated + not ridiculously expensive, using stablecoin is definitely easier than other fluctuating tokens / coins.

Almost immediately, it was updated to the system. Definitely impressed!

(However I noticed that my validity didn't increase. I think it is because partly this is tied to the yearly super saver so I guess it is fair enough that they do not increase my lifespan)

So far with the Beta testing, and the traffic isn't high for this website, it is still doable.

I am now wondering how it will function when it goes totally live for mass adoption.

How about you?

Do you already know about this service and will you be using it when this service comes to your country (if it hasn't)?

I think this is great too especially for digital nomads travelling in these countries.