Like traditional payment systems, Lyra operates with existing currencies, so it is completely free of monetary policies, volatility, and other concerns not related to payment processing domain. As a result, Lyra has characteristics that are difficult or impossible to achieve using mono-cryptocurrency systems: high speed, virtually unlimited scalability, and versatility of payment methods. What differentiates it from traditional payment systems, however, is decentralization, which opens a pandora box of priceless features: undiscriminated permissionless access, security, privacy, low fees, open participating economy, and more.