All about crypto on-ramps

When Ethereum followed Bitcoin, we were all amazed by its incredible capabilities. Everything was possible and the internet of money was within arms reach. However, once we started to build, Ethereum shortcomings became evident - high gas costs, slow transaction speeds and lack of scalability threatened to stall the web3 movement. This post will be the first one in the Scaling series - where we discuss opportunities presented by different Layer 2 solutions or gas optimised sidechains. 

This time, the spotlight is on Polygon, formerly known as Matic Network.

We have been talking a lot about partnerships, implementations and wide-scale uses for crypto ramps, both ours (ramp.network) and in general. However, sometimes all you need is an easy way to get crypto, and Ramp can help here as well.

Some of the greatest advantages of the crypto community and market are mutual understanding and common goals. Most users, readers, members and customers are genuine enthusiasts, knowledgeable about the subject and very eager to give feedback, try new solutions and help. Or, so seems to be the case - reality differs a bit.

We believe blockchain technology will significantly improve the lives of billions of people around the world, and will likely be the most important GDP multiplier since the internet. This generational opportunity will unlock a multi-trillion-dollar potential for the global economy.

We have been writing about crypto ramps and on-ramps for quite some time, but recently found out that the term itself does not really have a clear definition elsewhere. To avoid confusion, make things easy & propagate good terminology in the industry, we have decided to make things transparent.

When talking about cryptocurrencies, the things that immediately come to mind are crypto wallets, exchanges and direct conversions of fiat <> crypto. Crypto is only a direct investment mechanism, though: it can be used to purchase stuff, and many game developers are using cryptocurrencies for their in-game mechanics.

At Ramp we focus on excellent user experience. And part of that is always expanding supported payment methods to make sure our users will always find something that fits them. Last week we unveiled Ramp 2.0 and today we want to talk about what’s new regarding payment methods: what just got a huge upgrade and which method will suit your case best. Keep on reading!

Few of us imagined 2020 the way it’s turned out. For one, we have all been affected by the pandemic and are only now beginning to comprehend the repercussions it will have on global markets in the near future.

Crypto in 2020 resembles the Internet of the early 1990s. Promising but very hard to navigate. Although there’s a lot of progress in terms of UX with mobile wallets, social recovery and nicer UIs, we haven’t yet had the Mosaic moment of crypto. Mosaic was the Internet browser that led to the 1990s Internet boom.

Today we launch the first version of Ramp Oracle — an Intel SGX based solution for trustless fiat-to-crypto settlement. We consider this release to be a major milestone in developing some of our ideas previously presented in “The future of on-ramps is peer-to-peer”.