One of the things that brought me into web3 was the idea of how we could re-define payment rails. With the mint today of @Helions from @Helio - The Web3 payments API ⚡️ we are taking a massive step in the right direction. The 'Stripe of web3' putting more money back in the hands of main street.

Swipe fees for all types and brands of cards totaled $137.8 billion last year in the US, more than double over 10 years. Small retailers, restaurant, and service are calling for swipe fee reform more than any other segment due to broken interchange fees and changing dynamics.

Credit card fees represent on average 3% with many paying more due to $0.10 per swipe on low cost items. We do enough volume and have enough locations in our stores we were able to negotiate a locked 2.75% without a per swipe fee. If we weren't it would cost us two GM salaries.

While Helio isn't going after brick and mortar POS systems like ours it shows what is possible. E-commerce Pay Links Tipping Invoices Pay Streams Paywall Subscriptions + more All with a move toward near ZERO fees.

Helio was founded by experienced entrepreneurs (@Cypherj is a @BOOGLE holder) who previously built, scaled and exited two B2B SaaS companies for $600M. Instead of stopping there they were inspired by what they could create on Solana and how they could shape the future.

They have continued to build out the Helio team with leading engineering, product and design talent from Kraken, Solana, IBM, and more. This shows in how they have built from the start. It is nice to see a project actually build, operate, plan, and execute BEFORE the mint.

Holders are members of Helions DAO, which generates rewards from the NFT and Helio’s operations (10% credit on royalties, transaction & subscription fees). Helions DAO will pay out 75% of these credit rewards to holders on a quarterly basis.

While that is nice what excites me is holding the NFT gives access to HelioX which is the pro version of the Helio payment platform. 0% Tx fees, APIs, branded checkouts, plug-ins, Discord bot, token-gated checkouts.

Easy to manage and use payment solutions like this will accelerate global adoption and huge need in developing countries. If Helio wins every business would love to hold this NFT for 0% fees keeping more money in their business.

I want to do a better job of pointing out risk associated with investments in this space beyond the standard 'everything could go to zero'. I also want to note that if it does well after mint I will sell a some to cover any cost basis because I think that is incredible important.

This play has a long time horizon and will be highly competitive. My bet is on them being first to market, on the best chain for it, moving multi chain, and a top tier team to execute. Having a 'membership' to something that MIGHT be popular in a few years is still a big bet.

This NFT is not representative of ownership. Equity is the claim on assets less liabilities. Utility NFTs should be viewed as community building and helping projects bootstrap growth. Claim on revenue / governance / etc are all a moving target and a bonus. Wen equity round

Projects like @Helions are what drive this space forward. It's what drives real use cases and adoption. Solves national and global needs of consumers and businesses. Uses the blockchain to cut out middle men syphoning cash from the economy. I'm excited to watch them build.