Colossus

Colossus is a permissionless credit card network built on stablecoins. We reuse the existing credit card infrastructure to settle instantly in stablecoins on Ethereum. Follow for more updates.

Imagine Teotihucanos built this without noncustodial credit card networks

Live now: A credit card network that settles on Ethereum With @jchaskin22 and @binji_x, joined by @josephdelong, CEO of @colossuspay x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Who up deploying their testnet?

Tomorrow March 18 I 5pm UTC Join @jchaskin22 and @binji_x for a livestream with @josephdelong, CEO of @colossuspay. Colossus turns credit cards into private keys. Hear more about how they’re building a credit card network that settles on Ethereum. x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Someone told me Colossus was a good idea but we are too late. I think we’ll be right on time for the revolution.

This story gets more interesting.. When Bank of America spun out BankAmericard into VISA in 1970, they did something that mirrors crypto token distributions - an airdrop There was no cap table, no investors, No VCs, no founder/team allocation. 100% of ownership went to the member banks doing the work. Issue more cards, process more transactions, earn more of the network. Dee Hock (Visa CEO/founder) called his management philosophy "chaordic" - chaos plus order. Structured enough to enforce rules across thousands of competing banks. Decentralized enough that no single one could control it. He also set the quorum at 80% (DAOs should have studied this move) to change anything material. When you make change that hard, whoever writes the founding rules controls the network. When Visa went public in 2008, 38 years of transaction volume turned into shares. JPMorgan got 23%. BofA got 11.5%. Nobody paid for it. They earned it by running the rails. Every network starts somewhere @colossuspay

Are you taking requests?

The Fresno Drop The story of the first mass consumer credit card ever created In September 1958, Bank of America mailed 60,000 strangers a fully activated credit card. No application. No credit check. It just showed up in your mailbox. This is how the first credit card in history was created and changed consumer behaviour forever.. In 1904, Amadeo Pietro Giannini opened the Bank of Italy with $8,780 in first-day deposits for the people every other bank refused to bank. Immigrants. Workers. People without collateral. He made loans on handshakes. By 1930 the Bank of Italy was the largest bank in California and he renamed it Bank of America. Fast forward to 1958. Before this year, consumer credit is basically nonexistent. You pay cash, keep a running tab at the corner store, or beg your bank for a loan one purchase at a time. The Diners Club card exists but it's a charge card for businessmen, full balance due every month, no revolving credit, not for regular people. A BofA executive named Joe Williams changes all of this. His idea: mail fully activated credit cards, unsolicited, to 60,000 households of Fresno, California. No application. No opt-in. You just open your mailbox one day in September and there's a card in there with $300-500 in credit attached. They called it the BANK AMERICARD. Fresno was chosen because it was big enough to work, small enough to contain the damage if it blew up, and 45% of residents already banked with BofA. They pre-signed 300 local merchants before a single card hit a mailbox. At first it was a disaster. Williams assumed 4% delinquency. He got 22%. Fraud went everywhere - California cops were suddenly dealing with a crime they didn't even have a word for yet. BofA lost somewhere between $8M-$20M. Williams resigned in 1959. The credit card almost died right there in Fresno. But BofA decided to keep it going and cleaned it up quietly, tightened controls and kept going. By 1961 it was profitable. They told no one (avoid competition). Within 13 months of the drop, 2 million cards were in circulation and 20,000 merchants were on the network. Then Dee Hock, a bank manager in Seattle got handed the task of launching his bank's BankAmericard license. Nobody wanted it. He quickly figured out why - the whole system was falling apart. 250+ banks issuing the same card, no shared rules, a chaotic settlement process, back rooms drowning in unprocessed transactions, everyone blaming everyone else. Hock spent over a year convincing Bank of America to give up ownership of their own product and spin it out as an independent cooperative owned equally by all member banks (another story but interesting af how equity was given based on processing volume to banks). "It can't be done," BofA's vice chairman told him. In 1970 it was done. Hock became the first CEO. He renamed it Visa in 1976. The first credit card in history came from a bank built to serve people other banks ignored. It nearly failed twice — once in Fresno, once when the whole licensing system almost collapsed. It survived both times and became the backbone of how the world pays for everything - Today it processes $15+ trillion a year.. Giannini's little italian bank became the most valuable payment network ever built. Every network starts somewhere. Been going down the rabbit hole on the early history of credit cards while building @colossuspay and thought this one was too good not to share

Colossus is now banked by Erebor

Cutting out Visa and Mastercard? @colossuspay is attempting what every crypto card startup dreams of but none have pulled off Kudos for the team to work on the hard problem decrypt.co/360147/inside-…

Colossus covered in Yahoo Finance

@emmysteuer We settle credit card transactions non-custodially in 172ms on Ethereum. I’m in San Antonio but I’d make the 1 hour drive

Inside the Quest at Colossus to Replace Visa and Mastercard With KYC-Less Crypto Cards decrypt.co/360147/inside-…

@josephdelong 🗽

Fees you will never pay on Colossus Credit Assessment Debit Assessment Acquirer Brand Volume Fee (<$1,000) Acquirer Brand Volume Fee (>=$1,000) Acquirer License Fee (ALF) Network Assessment Fee Card-Not-Present Surcharge Program Continuation Fee Assessment Fee Acquirer Processing Fee (APF) -- Credit Acquirer Processing Fee (APF) -- Debit Network Access and Brand Usage (NABU) -- Domestic Network Access and Brand Usage (NABU) -- International Data Usage Fee Network Authorization Fee Base II System File Fee Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) -- Card-Present Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) -- Card-Not-Present Merchant Location Fee Digital Commerce Service Fee Digital Enablement Fee MOTO Fee CNP Surcharge International Service Assessment (ISA) ISA Enhanced (non-USD) International Acquirer Fee (IAF) Cross-Border Assessment (USD) Cross-Border Assessment (non-USD) Acquirer Program Support Fee International Assessment International Cross-Border Fee International Service Fee EIRF Downgrade Standard / Non-Qualified Downgrade Standard Downgrade (Consumer Credit) Standard Downgrade (Consumer Debit) Standard Downgrade (Commercial) Standard / Non-Qualified Rate Standard Downgrade (Credit) Standard Downgrade (Debit) Late Settlement Downgrade Missing Data Downgrade Auth/Settle Mismatch Downgrade Misuse of Authorization Fee Zero Floor Limit Fee Transaction Integrity Fee (TIF) Processing Integrity Fee Excessive Authorization Integrity Fee TPE Fee (Undefined Authorization) Non-Compliance Surcharge Auth Non-Compliance Fee Excessive Chargeback Fee Voice Authorization Fee Zero Dollar Verification Fee AVS Fee (CNP) AVS Fee (CP) Account Status Inquiry Fee Card Validation Code Fee (CVC2) Business Data Level Downgrade (Tier 2 vs Tier 1) Business Standard Downgrade CEDP Participation Fee Data Rate I vs Data Rate II Penalty Data Rate I vs Data Rate III Penalty Commercial Standard vs Data Rate II Penalty Issuer/Acquirer Annual Membership Fee BIN Sponsorship Fee Issuer/Acquirer Annual Licensing Fee Credential Continuity Program Fee PCI DSS Compliance Costs Annual Network Audit/Certification Chargeback Processing Fee Arbitration Case Filing Fee Network Case Filing Fee Dispute Refund Request Fee (Tier 1) Dispute Refund Request Fee (Tier 2) Refund Request Response Fee Excessive Chargeback Program Fee Chargeback Representment Costs Chargeback Monitoring Program Fees Commercial Solutions Fee MCC-Specific Rate Fragmentation Biannual Rate Changes

Loved this article. And it's not necessarily cards vs stablecoins. Platforms like @colossuspay may fill the gap by providing cards that work with traditional PoS interfaces yet settled on crypto rails. Lots of solutions will fill the gap!