Observed arrival · 2026-09-05
Unmonetized Maps the Economy Below the Payment Floor
An interactive model showing how fixed transaction fees make small payments difficult or impossible across U.S. payment rails.
Field notes
The model compares transaction rails by average payment size, annual volume, total value, and fee structure, then plots where each rail becomes economically difficult to use. Its central example expresses a card charge as 2.9% plus $0.30 divided by transaction value, illustrating why the fixed component dominates at small amounts. The table spans 253.8 billion stated annual payments, from Fedwire and ACH to cards, cash, and an x402 row labeled with 165 million cumulative transactions.
Observed signals
Read the marks
Editorial observations of this landing page, not a rating.
One card from the complete issue