According to a new ad campaign by Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange, the utility of billions of “clunky” pennies in the United States could be restored by moving the U.S. dollar to a “well-designed blockchain.”
The campaign occurred on February 12, National Lost Penny Day, an annual observance that began in 1995 to honor the invention of the penny and encourage citizens to search for misplaced pennies throughout their residences.
Coinbase, on the other hand, has taken advantage of the situation to assert that stablecoins can assist in “advancing money” and spare individuals and small businesses the expense of legacy fiat systems.
Coinbase reported in an X post on February 12 that there is an annual loss of $1.2 million worth of pennies, with their production costing nearly three times the value of a penny.
Following the transition of fiat to the blockchain, Zero Knowledge Consulting founder Austin Campbell argued at a subsequent X Spaces that merchants could benefit in particular from “instant settlement, low-cost payments” via stablecoins.
“Most merchants operate on very small margins, a lot of small consumer businesses have small margins and adding even one penny to that margin with improved cost structures is meaningful to them.”
The one-minute commercial features an animated Abraham Lincoln appealing for the digitization of pennies while depicted on a penny.
“Once upon a time, it meant something to say to be on the penny […] now it’s worthless barter for petty desires discarded like common garbage 120 million times a year, even though it’s technically money,” the animated penny Lincoln said as it was vacuumed away.
“Consider me paying cash for items.” One group of individuals who can travel the world instantaneously and without cost or difficulty. “Old Abe simply wishes to regain his prowess in making money,” he continued.
“Get me off this piece of scrap metal, make me digital.”
Despite a decade-long endeavor to terminate operations, the United States Mint will continue producing pennies in 2024. Based on 2017 data, the estimated value of pennies in circulation was $1.5 billion or 150 billion.
Campbell, however, who refers to himself as a “stablecoin philosopher,” conceded that there are still logistical and technical obstacles to bringing finance online.
“The most challenging aspect is the interface between a system that is operational for approximately 25% of the week during calendar hours and settles on a one-day or two-day forward basis and a live blockchain that I must use to transfer funds in and out,” he elaborated.
