I had the chance to speak at the Payfast Ecommerce Virtual Summit in March 2023 about Web3 and ecommerce. The audience was ecommerce merchants and developers in South Africa – people running real businesses who’d heard the hype and the horror stories about crypto, and wanted to understand what (if anything) was actually useful.
So yeh. Let me walk you through what I covered.
What is Web3, Really?
Here’s the thing: cryptocurrency is internet money. But more fundamentally, cryptocurrencies are internet protocols – just like SMTP lets you send emails, HTTP lets you browse the web, and DNS looks up domain names, Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) are protocols for making financial transactions.
That framing helps cut through a lot of the noise. We’re not talking about magic internet money from nowhere. We’re talking about adding financial transaction capabilities to the internet’s core protocol suite.
The Web3 ecosystem sits in a cycle:
Blockchains & Bridges create new primitives (layer 1 protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum, layer 2 scaling solutions, cross-chain bridges, tokens, smart contracts, decentralized storage)
Infrastructure combines these primitives (identity systems like ENS, governance tools, transactions, compute, storage, data availability)
Use Cases emerge from infrastructure (NFTs, DeFi, content/commerce/community tools, gaming, metaverse)
Access layers make it available (wallets like MetaMask, aggregators, Web2 integrations, dApps)
And then these access layers interact with blockchains directly and through infrastructure, completing the cycle.
The Alignment with WordPress Values
Look; there’s a reason I’m drawn to this space as someone who’s spent 16 years in WordPress.
WordPress.org states: “We believe in democratising publishing and the freedoms that come with open source.”
Web3 is about the freedom to transact.
That’s the philosophical through-line. Just as WordPress democratized publishing by removing gatekeepers, Web3 protocols democratize financial transactions by removing intermediaries who can deny you access to the system.
Isn’t It All a Scam?
Okay, let’s address this head-on. I played a game with the audience: crypto or fiat?
I showed them volatility charts without labels. Wild swings, massive crashes. Which was it – sketchy crypto or legitimate government currency?
Chart 1: Turned out to be USD/JPY in March 2020. Traditional fiat currency pair, massive volatility.
Chart 2: USD/BTC (Bitcoin). Yes, volatile. But following a clear logarithmic growth curve over time.
Chart 3: USD/VEF (Venezuelan bolívar) – hyperinflation so extreme it made Bitcoin look stable.
Then the punchline – that meme comparing FTX (which fraudulently printed unlimited tokens and lent customer funds) to the Federal Reserve. The joke lands because… the mechanics aren’t actually that different. The difference is legitimacy and regulation, not the underlying mechanism.
The point: Scams exist everywhere. Bad actors exist in crypto. They also exist in traditional finance (hello, 2008 financial crisis). The technology isn’t the scam – specific implementations and actors can be.
Practical Benefits for Merchants
Enough philosophy. What can ecommerce merchants actually do with this?
Cheaper transaction fees: Credit card processing is 2-3% plus fixed fees. Cryptocurrency transactions can be significantly cheaper, especially for international payments.
Control over refunds: With crypto, you decide if/when to process refunds. No chargebacks where payment processors claw money back without your input.
Add incremental revenue: Accept a payment method your competitors don’t. Crypto-native customers will seek you out.
Sell on-chain products/services: NFTs, digital collectibles, token-gated memberships – new product categories.
Cheaper international payments: Send USDC to a supplier in another country for pennies in fees, no foreign exchange spreads, settled in minutes not days.
Diversify your treasury: Hold some reserves in stablecoins or cryptocurrency as a hedge.
Stablecoins Change the Game
Here’s what made people’s eyes light up: 1 USDC = 1 USD. 1 EUROC = 1 EUR.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies. You get all the benefits of crypto (fast settlement, low fees, programmability, global access) with none of the volatility concerns.
For merchants worried about Bitcoin price swings, stablecoins solve that problem completely. You can accept USDC, immediately convert to your local currency, or hold it as USD-equivalent reserves.
More Than Money: Identity and Ownership
The really interesting stuff happens when we move beyond payments.
Identity in Web2: You ask platforms for permission to access your account and data. “Can I please log into Instagram?” “Can Facebook please give me my photos?”
Identity in Web3: Applications ask you for permission to access your data. You connect your wallet. The app requests permission to read specific information. You approve or deny. You’re in control.
This inverts the power dynamic fundamentally.
Token-Gating Is Fast Becoming a Mega-Trend
Own a specific NFT? Get access to exclusive products, content, or experiences.
Real example: I showed my own OpenSea profile – digital collectibles I’ve collected over the years. Each one could theoretically unlock different perks:
- Special Discord channels
- Exclusive merchandise
- Early access to products
- Community voting rights
- Creator royalties when resold
Companies like Boson Protocol are connecting physical products to NFTs – buy sneakers, get the NFT, unlock exclusive colorways or events.
Creators Gonna Create
One slide, one tweet: an artist earning 1.85 ETH (~$5,700 at the time) in royalties in one week from just 36 people.
That’s 10% secondary sales royalties automatically enforced by smart contracts. It would take 1.4 million plays on Spotify to generate equivalent revenue.
The primary sale was 10 ETH (~$31k). 136 people generated more than 9.1 million “people” worth of engagement in traditional creator economy terms.
Creators can actually make a living. The infrastructure enables it.
What I Learned
Giving this talk to ecommerce merchants – people running Shopify stores, WooCommerce sites, dealing with real inventory and real customers – sharpened my thinking about what actually matters.
The philosophical arguments about decentralization are interesting. The volatility concerns are real. But when a merchant asks “Can this help me make more money and serve customers better?” – that’s the forcing function for clarity.
The answer is yes, but it requires:
1. Understanding the tech enough to implement it safely
2. Having customers who want to pay this way
3. Being willing to handle the operational complexity
4. Seeing past the hype to practical use cases
Not every merchant needs to accept crypto tomorrow. But every merchant should understand these tools exist and watch where they’re heading.
Looking Forward
We’re still early. The infrastructure is maturing. User experience is improving (slowly). Regulation is coming (good and bad varieties).
The merchants who experiment now, who understand these tools, who build crypto-native customer bases – they’ll have an advantage as this technology moves mainstream.
More importantly, as people in countries with unstable currencies, limited banking access, or authoritarian financial control already know: freedom to transact isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.
Web3 gives people new ways to organize and collaborate, freely. That matters.
—
Original Presentation: Payfast Ecommerce Virtual Summit 2023 (March 14-15, 2023)
Attendees got: Free POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) NFT via https://bit.ly/payfast2023
Find me: Contact form, @divydovy most places, hi@divydovy.com
Note: I work at Automattic as Web3 Lead. These are my personal views. I’ve been in WordPress 16 years, crypto/blockchain/Web3 for 6 years. Not financial advice, not legal advice, just one practitioner’s perspective on where this tech intersects with ecommerce.