Transferring assets from one cryptocurrency address to another is standard procedure for payment. This article will lightly discuss the difference between receiving transferred cryptocurrency and redeeming something for transferred cryptocurrency.

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“Hey, Bob, could you send me some USDC?”

“Sure Jane. What’s your address?”

Yada yada…

Bob’s USDC appears in Jane’s account, ready for spending.

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You don’t think he’d yada yada transaction?

I’ve yada yada’d transaction.

… You yada yada’d over the best part.

Decentralized ownership and transaction of funds was the reason Satoshi created Bitcoin. It’s the reason we’re in this space.

So… why do we yada yada over the best part? The actual form of transacting assets between two parties?

This article will describe the current yada yada (receiving transacted crypto), and present a new form of yada yada (redeeming for transacted crypto). After comparison, I hope to raise awareness for redemption as an entirely separate, expanded means of transacting assets between users.

Let’s begin by defining the two words using Google’s Oxford Languages.

Receive: be given, presented with, or paid (something).

Redeem: gain or regain possession of (something) in exchange for payment.

For our purposes, receiving crypto means being given crypto directly, and redeeming for crypto means doing something in order to gain possession of crypto.

Receiving crypto is an extremely familiar feeling. Well, it isn’t quite a feeling, so much as a confirmation. Sometimes, you can even receive crypto you don’t want or even know about. There’s no option here — either you received crypto, or you didn’t.

I’ll bring a real-life example of a friend and his father, who received his first crypto asset the other day. The father really wanted to obtain a Dollar Store Kid NFT, and needed help creating a crypto wallet. After a lengthy setup, the wallet was created, and the NFT was sent his way.

“Here, open your wallet and wait”, my friend announced. “I just sent it, it’ll get there soon”.

His father waited.

“Confirmed!” said my friend.

“Awesome! What do I do now?” asked his father.

“Refresh the page”, responded the friend.

And, after said refresh, the happy Dollar Store Kid peacefully awaited him in the wallet.

There was silence, before the father’s response. “…What did I do? How did I get it?”

He’s right. There was no interaction. I was taken aback.

Would I need to inform this man about blockchain finality? Would I need to take him to the transaction on Etherscan? Does he not appreciate the true value of owning his assets?

No. I would not. I would be the one in the wrong. Why do I need to explain away poor user experience?

This story demonstrates the feeling of receiving. Or lack thereof.

Did my friend’s father get his crypto asset? Absolutely. Does he have what he wanted? Absolutely.

Did he have a choice? Did he even know he got it? Would a notification have helped? How do you demonstrate receiving something? A Venmo notification on your phone? How do we show assets accepted on-blockchain? How can we engross people interacting with crypto?

It all comes down to one premise. There’s no feeling in receiving.

When we go to our mailboxes (figuratively our address), we often see envelopes or boxes with information on them. There’s information about the sender, the receiver (you), and some distinction of what it is we’re obtaining. It’s a small box; it’s a large envelope. It’s from the government; it’s from Amazon. We might be able to guess what’s inside — or we might already know.

We know to tailor our expectations because of the information given to us: visual, tangible, sometimes even nasal or audial. We can shake the box; we can cross-check the package. We can tear it open slowly; we can cut it open with a knife. We, and the package creator, control the redemption experience. Redeeming introduces feeling.

Wow! I just got a present! I wonder what’s inside. Can’t wait to crack it open.

Ugh, another bill, huh? Alright, alright. Let’s open it up and see what I have to pay.

These are packages redeemed for their underlying items.

Nobody receives Pizza. People receive Pizza Boxes, with Pizzas inside.

When was the last time somebody drove to your house and placed a whole Pizza in your hand? Don’t answer that.

Pizza boxes protect the food. Written on top of the box are the toppings. Opening the box is easy, and smells great. It’s appealing. We all love the experience.

In other words, redeeming is a confirmation step. You redeem in order to receive.

Redeeming introduces checks and balances. For us in blockchain, it means programmability. It means composability. It’s opening the Pizza box for your crypto. It’s the full solution.

If this concept interests you, I consider following Capsule, who will be working to solve this issue on all blockchains we use today.

Let’s introduce feeling back to transaction — just like we do in real life.

Let’s not yada yada transaction anymore.

Let’s create a user experience we can all be proud of.

For my friend — and his father.

Let’s use Capsule.

“Well, I gotta do something!” — Capsule

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Check Capsule out on Twitter/X, by website, or the documentation.

You can always find me on Twitter/X or in the Capsule Discord.

And for those interested in a clip of the Seinfeld episode, view here.

Or, read more about Capsule on my page here.