Metal Pay Review: Fiat and Crypto in Single App, Earn to Send/Receive

Metal is an ERC20 token with several unique features. In a general sense, it's connected to a payment processing app that lets people send and receive micro-payments. Users can also trade the Metal cryptocurrency in-app.

In digging a bit deeper, one way to think about the Metal platform's functionality is to say that it does what PayPal, Square and Venmo do but in a decentralized fashion. Furthermore, Metal has a number of features that differentiate it from other payment apps even within the cryptocurrency industry. In addition to providing fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat conversions on a on-demand basis based on market prices at the time of exchange, Metal rewards people in Metal tokens for sending and receiving them from friends and peers.

The app also bridges cryptocurrency and fiat currencies using built-in bank accounts and crypto vaults. They support integration of cryptocurrency with other financial institutions such as banks, payment processors, and technology companies. It's current compatible with iOS and desktop systems (Android is on the way). By bridging crypto with fiat as well as easing the conversion from fiat to crypto, they hope to place themselves at the head of the eventual snowball towards widespread adoption. With regards to this, they'll be rewarding users who transact in both crypto and fiat currencies on the platform. This will act as a valuable incentive for increasing the use cases of their app and their native cryptocurrency. Furthermore, this means that the Metal app has huge competitors like Paypal, Venmo, AliPay and WeChat pay but with nice differentiation with crypto. So far, the app has processed $11 million in payments since it started, which translates to around $1 million per month.

Overall, the project began in 2016 and has so far launched Metal Vault, Metal Pay, and Crumbs.

Bridging the crypto and fiat worlds

Metal's ultimate goal is to make fiat money better with crypto. According to Metal, bridging the crypto and fiat worlds may be one way of doing this. With this goal, however, comes the hope that many more people will use the Metal token if there is seamless interoperability between fiat and crypto in a comfortable and low cost manner. Metal supports the opening and usage of (U.S. currently)