Retail to Credit: A Trillion-Dollar Market Separated by Boundaries

In the real world, retail, e-commerce, payment, logistics, and consumer credit are often described as five parallel highways. Although they occasionally intersect, they more often operate at high speed on their own tracks. We see Walmart and Amazon competing for user entry points at the front end, Visa and Mastercard holding the initiative in global clearing, UPS, SF Express, and FedEx competing on efficiency and cost in the fulfillment stage, while credit services like Klarna and Affirm take over the billing only after people complete their purchases.

We believe that this fragmented pattern is a natural result formed under the long-term influence of technological conditions and institutional frameworks.

In fact, different business ecosystems have clear boundaries and benefit distribution mechanisms, and the cost of cross-border collaboration is extremely high, making it difficult to achieve true data and rights integration.

From the market size perspective, these sectors are all giants:

• Global e-commerce sales reached $5.8 trillion in 2023 and are expected to exceed $7.9 trillion by 2027;
• The annual transaction volume of the global payment industry has long surpassed 150 trillion USD.
• The logistics industry is approaching a scale of 10 trillion dollars, and supply chain finance is expected to reach 13 trillion dollars by 2030;
• The total global consumer credit exceeds $30 trillion, with the annual growth rate of BNPL in emerging markets remaining above 20%.

If these tracks achieve unified accounting of data, funds, and rights on-chain, they will no longer just grow in parallel, but will form a multiplicative value amplification through synergy.

In the Web3 era, the asset chain transformation and open collaborative networks of blockchain technology are providing new breakthrough ideas for this pattern.

It not only changes the way value is recorded and circulated but also allows originally independent tracks to have the potential for integration at the technical and incentive levels. This means that on-chain transactions can simultaneously carry product prices, logistics status, delivery proof, and credit records; consumer points are no longer restricted to a single platform, but have the capability for cross-scenario circulation, staking, and even lending; credit limits can be dynamically adjusted in real-time with the changes in on-chain transactions, without the need to wait for bank statements or manual approvals, providing possibilities.

However, looking back at the Web3 hotspots in recent years, GameFi, DeFi, NFT, and RWA have all ignited market sentiment, but they lack a main channel that can solidify real transactions, accumulate credit, feed back asset value, and deeply interconnect them.

• GameFi attracted tens of millions of players in 2021, but it struggled to convert virtual assets into sustainable real-world value;
• The DeFi locked assets approached $180 billion in 2022, but the funds mostly circulated within the chain, lacking external economic injection;
• The NFT market generated an annual turnover of 25 billion dollars at its peak, but has stagnated in the integration of physical goods and supply chains;
• Although RWA is expected to become a trillion-dollar market, it is currently more focused on low-frequency assets such as government bonds, bonds, and real estate, and has not reached everyday consumption scenarios.

Against this backdrop, PSP began to try to use consumption, the most universal economic behavior, as a breakthrough point, transforming it into a credit, asset, and collaboration network on the chain, hoping to ultimately find a new balance amidst the multiple challenges of institutional, technological, and user migration, and to unleash a new round of Web3 market dividends.

PSP Reshaping Industry Landscape Based on Web3

Focusing on PSP (Payment Service Provider), which is positioned as the core hub connecting merchants and payment networks, providing merchants with a complete set of transaction infrastructure such as acquiring, clearing, and risk control.

As mentioned above, in the traditional model of the consumption system, the circulation of upstream goods and the supply chain link, as well as downstream user operations and financial services, are usually disconnected from the payment system. This not only prevents the value of data from being accumulated but also results in high collaboration costs across scenarios and low efficiency in cross-border transactions and consumer finance.

The PSP solution itself is based on a blockchain solution and is aimed at Web3, expecting to upgrade payments from a single funding channel to an on-chain programmable value network.

Through the on-chain PSP architecture, payment, supply chain finance, loyalty points, BNPL, and other consumer finance modules can operate on the same credit and settlement layer, forming real-time mapping and automatic settlement of capital flow, information flow, and credit flow. Smart contracts ensure that rules are transparent and enforceable, while cross-border settlements can leverage stablecoins and decentralized clearing networks to reduce costs and shorten cycles. NFTs and on-chain identity systems can also endow loyalty and membership programs with cross-platform liquidity.

In the new model, payments will become the economic hub that runs through the entire chain of production, circulation, and consumption. In this system, merchants can reduce operational and compliance costs, consumers can obtain a seamless experience across platforms and borders, while the entire network accumulates real on-chain credit and assets. Through DeFi, RWA, and more Web3 scenarios, it will further provide sustainable infrastructure for the traditional world.

In the PSP system, the upstream includes acquirers and brand parties that are directly facing transactions, and extends deeper into the industry chain, covering fulfillment links such as warehousing, logistics, and distribution, as well as various SaaS tools and data service providers like ERP, CRM, and marketing automation.

Their core value lies not only in promoting the flow of physical goods but also in being able to consolidate structured data (such as SKU codes, inventory turnover rates, fulfillment cycles) and unstructured data (such as reasons for logistics anomalies, conversion records of marketing activities, customer profile tags) that are highly relevant to transactions. In traditional payment models, this data is often stored in a dispersed manner and is difficult to access efficiently, whereas in the on-chain PSP architecture, all data can be written to the blockchain in an encrypted manner, forming verifiable and traceable credit certificates.

Taking cross-border fulfillment as an example, the warehouse's inbound timestamp, the logistics node scanning records, and the delivery confirmation can all be put on the blockchain, creating a complete data chain that spans production, circulation, and delivery. This not only enhances the real-time nature and credibility of PSP in risk control, settlement, and dispute resolution, but also provides high-quality raw materials for on-chain credit profiles in Web3 scenarios. Leveraging smart contracts, these credit data can also be automatically invoked in supply chain finance, decentralized trade financing, RWA asset collateralization, and other scenarios, achieving a seamless connection from transaction to financing.

In this model, PSP can become a deeply embedded value hub in the upstream of the industry chain, linking off-chain and on-chain economies, while expanding the boundaries of ecological business and introducing real, verifiable industrial data flows for the entire Web3 financial infrastructure.

In the midstream segment of the industrial system, PSP itself is able to no longer rely on manual reconciliation and centralized clearing institutions, as it can achieve automated settlement through smart contracts. The flow of funds is secured by on-chain atomic execution, and transaction vouchers and ledger updates are kept in sync, ensuring that the confirmation of each payment and asset transfer can be completed in real-time, fundamentally eliminating the settlement delays of T+1 or even longer cycles in traditional systems.

At the same time, PSP can circulate and match in a multi-chain environment through infrastructure such as cross-chain bridges, Layer 2 Rollups, and modular settlement layers. This means that whether it is cross-regional payments, cross-asset settlements, or exchanges between stablecoins and fiat currencies, they can all be completed in a broader and more efficient network, thereby truly achieving unified global settlement.

More importantly, the core value of midstream on-chain lies in its programmability.

In traditional clearing systems, fund transfers are often rigid "single-line operations" that struggle to accommodate complex business logic.

Under the on-chain architecture, PSP can overlay conditional rules through smart contracts:

For example, in cross-border payments, using RWA (such as receivables, warehouse receipts, property rights) as collateral to trigger instant financing; in B2B payments, automatically adjusting limits and credit lines based on on-chain identity credentials; in C-end consumption, dynamically triggering BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) or installment settlement in conjunction with on-chain credit scoring, and becoming an open financial interface between DeFi protocols, stablecoin ecosystems, and institutional payment networks.

As a result, the midstream role of PSP is gradually transforming: evolving from a previous "cost center" to a new "value center." As a value network that supports value-added services, the positioning of PSP has transcended that of a mere payment service provider; it also serves as a natural liquidity bridge connecting digital assets with traditional finance.

This bridging effect is expected to enhance the resilience and scalability of payment networks, while also opening up new growth curves for PSPs, allowing payments themselves to become an important gateway for the emergence of new financial services and asset circulation under the premise of compliance and transparency.

Based on this, PSP is building a comprehensive network that can serve multiple roles, including B-end merchants, cross-border logistics and service nodes, institutional investors participating in consumer finance, and financial institutions providing settlement and clearing for on-chain assets. Each link is consuming, producing, or converting value and returning it to the core network of PSP.

Overall, PSP can serve both as a liquidity layer for funds and as a general ledger for data and rights. In the trend of on-chain development, this "dual ledger" model is expected to become the central nervous system of future consumption networks.

The Scarce Ecological Niche of PSP in the Web3 World

From the current Web3 ecosystem, the mainstream entry points for users still remain at two dimensions.

The first is the exchange, including platforms like Binance, Coinbase, and OKX, which remain the first point of contact for most people with digital assets. They serve the core functions of fund deposits and withdrawals, liquidity aggregation, and asset pricing.

The second is public chains: Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain represent the infrastructure for development and applications. They rely on ecosystem effects, compatibility, and toolchains to gather the largest developer communities.

However, the true high-frequency entry point that approaches everyday consumption behavior remains an untouched blank.

We see that, in fact, whether it is the attempt at payment wallets or the expansion of NFT e-commerce and blockchain games, none have been able to break through the ceiling of "low-frequency usage."

In comparison, the number of transactions in global retail payments is already dozens of times that of financial asset transactions.

According to statistics from the World Bank, the transaction volume for retail payments alone reaches hundreds of billions of transactions each year, while the total stablecoin transfers for the entire year of 2024, even at peak times, only amount to several tens of millions of transactions per day. In other words, Web3 still lacks a true entry point in the scenario that best reflects the "migration of lifestyle habits."

As Clayton Christensen emphasized: "The key to competition is not in the product, but in whether it can be embedded into users' daily behaviors." Therefore, whoever can occupy the high-frequency consumption entry holds the initiative in user migration.

The scarcity in the PSP ecosystem lies in the fact that it is not limited to a specific type of scenario. It continuously accumulates on-chain liquidity and verifiable credit by engaging in real high-frequency consumption transactions. For example, micro-payments in cross-border e-commerce, periodic deductions for online subscriptions, or daily settlements for retail merchants. These seemingly trivial transactions, once migrated to the blockchain, will form a continuous and trustworthy cash flow and credit certificates. This user structure is actually difficult for crypto-native DeFi/DEX to reach, as the latter primarily attracts asset-driven speculative groups rather than "consumption-driven" real users.

PSP is also making the consumption entry on-chain, inherently possessing a spillover effect across different tracks.

In the PSP system, the credit data accumulated from payment behaviors can be directly extended to the BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) model. User points can be assets that flow freely across platforms, and behavioral data such as consumption frequency and transaction habits can empower insurance modeling and investment decision-making in a reverse manner.

Keynes once pointed out: "Credit does not grow out of banks, but out of transactional behavior."

In the on-chain environment, PSP perfectly takes on this role, bridging collaborative paths between the five traditional financial sectors of payments, credit, points, insurance, and investment, constructing an unprecedented channel for user migration and value accumulation.

PSP's Multidimensional Growth Engine

In fact, PSP is attempting to build a composite growth engine through a multi-layered approach.

It extends the confirmation of RWA and the mapping of benefits to consumption scenarios, integrates the physical nodes of DePIN into the payment link, embeds AI's intelligent modeling into the risk control and credit assessment system, and is complemented by the bidirectional connection of payments and wallets as well as the retention cycle of the loyalty credit system.

This design allows PSP to create a self-growing system that not only inherits the liquidity of on-chain assets but also truly channels assets into the most active new consumption pathways. Moreover, this multidimensional architecture possesses anti-cyclical characteristics; even if a single track falls into a trough, other modules can still support the overall growth of the system. This "composite narrative" validates Albert Hirschman's view in "Strategies of Economic Development": "Diverse growth paths can mitigate risks and create robust systemic returns."

On this basis, PSP is becoming a cross-industry system connector.

It uses payments as an entry point to weave together five major digital economy sectors: e-commerce/consumption, logistics/supply chain, finance, and content/entertainment, creating a complementary and symbiotic network. For the first time, the flow of funds, goods, assets, and information has achieved a unified closed loop on the blockchain, thus enabling the payment narrative to have the potential to compete on equal footing with traditional systems.

From a macro market perspective, this cross-sector connection represents the blue ocean market of the entire digital economy:

The scale of global consumer payments exceeds tens of trillions of dollars, the annual demand for supply chain finance has already crossed the trillion-dollar level, and the growth of e-commerce and content entertainment continues to unleash the dividends of population and consumption upgrades.

Therefore, for PSP, it is not only backed by a trillion-scale blue ocean market but also positioned in a rapidly growing new track. With the support of the global digital economy's market size and blue ocean dividends, PSP's positioning further indicates that it is likely to become a key link connecting the five major tracks in the future.

$PSP Why is it a long-term asset

Focusing on the core asset of the PSP ecosystem $PSP, which possesses the typical attributes of a "long-term asset."

Scalability is a natural advantage of the PSP system. Starting from payments, as a high-frequency, essential application, with the expansion of consumption scenarios and the number of users, the usage frequency and the scale of accumulation of $PSP tokens grow in direct proportion. Every new merchant integration and every cross-border transaction continuously strengthens the value capture path of $PSP, allowing it to amplify naturally with user network effects.

The replicable attribute of the PSP ecosystem determines that its growth model has a high leverage effect. We see that merchant systems in different regions, cross-border e-commerce networks, and supply chain financial scenarios in vertical industries can all quickly reuse the basic infrastructure of PSP. Whether it is small payments for local merchants or large settlements for cross-border e-commerce, $PSP can become a unified value intermediary with unlimited market expansion capabilities.

The PSP's ecological credit system, risk control capabilities, and user retention jointly build a network moat. This means that $PSP token holders are also co-builders of network credit. When the accumulation of credit and consumption stickiness based on $PSP are formed in the ecosystem, the cost of user migration will be greatly increased, and the defense of the platform will naturally increase, becoming an infrastructure that is difficult to be easily replaced.

Therefore, we have reason to believe that $PSP can benchmark against Affirm and Klarna in the financial sector, capturing value in consumer credit, settlement, and installment payments; it can also benchmark against infrastructure projects like Helium and IoTeX, accumulating long-term assets through underlying connections across multiple scenarios and chains. For investors, this means that $PSP not only has a cash flow valuation logic from fintech but also possesses a scale premium typical of infrastructure-type networks, presenting a uniqueness in its valuation space that reflects a "multi-industry model overlay."

Looking further, $PSP also has other characteristics of long-term assets, including:

• Policy dividends and compliance paths: With the improvement of the stablecoin legislation and payment compliance framework, PSP-type tokens will further legalize under policy promotion, providing certainty for large-scale institutional capital entry.
• Asset Deposition and Liquidity Value: $PSP can serve as collateral, credit certificate, and a benchmark for network liquidity, continuously being locked and utilized in financial derivative services, forming a stable "on-chain treasury."
• Network spillover effect: As a payment token, $PSP will naturally extend to e-commerce, supply chain, content entertainment, and other sectors, gradually building a pattern of "cross-industry value capture" to avoid reliance on a single application.

In summary, the value logic of $PSP is a long-term asset that is continuously strengthened by network effects, consumption scenarios, and credit accumulation. In the future market space, it not only relies on the vast blue ocean of the global payment and consumption market but also occupies the scarce dividends of Web3 infrastructure, with the potential to grow into a "connector of the five major tracks" and become a rare long-term scarce asset in the eyes of investors.

Summary

Overall, PSP is reconstructing the infrastructure for Web3 consumption, covering five major tracks: payments, consumption, e-commerce, logistics, finance, and content entertainment, becoming the "traffic and credit hub" in the entire digital consumption economy. As the ecological network continues to expand, PSP will gradually evolve into a cross-industry connector, bringing users, merchants, and capital together on the same value chain. This will be a trillion-dollar blue ocean market that has yet to be fully tapped, with unlimited potential.