Instantaneous Cryptocurrency Payments
We have a hybrid model, with a centralised app and decentralised blockchain it enables us to INSTANTLY confirm to a vendor (shop or online store) that an Electroneum user HAS the funds available in their wallet and therefore they can checkout of an ecommerce system or pay at a shop till and take the goods or service, instantly. We then (internally) ring-fence the funds to prevent them double spending (just like the blockchain does) – and move the transaction to the blockchain in good time.
The vendor and the user are happy because they got to buy something in a shop or online with zero fuss, bother or delay, and the vendor trusts us to ensure the payment is on its way. Vendors are used to waiting after an instant SUCCESS or FAILURE message – as that’s what a credit card machine does. The money from a credit card sale is only deposited into the vendors bank after a couple of days or more.
Some of the retailers we’ve been speaking to right back from last year, absolutely needed instantaneous payments before they would ever consider accepting cryptocurrency – which is why we’ve spent so much time and effort on this patent and the back-end technology that allows it. (not a small amount of money either!). A lot of large vendors have been waiting for this patent to be filed, as it changes the entire way a cryptocurrency can be used and takes it out from being just a relatively small technical user group, to being a genuinely useful way to make real world transactions.
If the user is using the Electroneum App or web wallet system, and the vendor has an account with us, the instant payment system will be available to them. Instant payments can even happen between our users – allowing anyone to instantly transfer funds.
The back – end system is not quite ready to roll out, but we’ve already been writing the code in advance of the patent going live. We will have it to MVP (minimum viable proposition) within the next couple of months (sooner if we can), which will allow vendors to get an instant notification of a payment, which they can hook in to their existing payment processing facility. We are working with integration with a couple of mobile network operators first, as we are commercially further ahead with them than anyone else. We are keen to work with any large brands as they can leverage being “first in their industry” to accept cryptocurrency and gain the benefit of free publicity.
Cryptocurrency Subscription Payments
So, if instant cryptocurrency payments wasn’t exciting enough, the technology and the patent covers something else that is a first in cryptocurrencies too, subscription payments in crypto!
Our hybrid model ALSO allows us to prompt a user for permission and then set up a subscription to make a regular payment to a vendor! Who do we know who likes subscriptions? Well, just about everybody in business is the answer – starting with the mobile operators.
Our patent covers subscriptions in cryptocurrencies and it covers subscriptions in cryptocurrencies to the value of any fiat currency, allowing a subscription to be either XX ETN per month (or week etc) or YY US Dollars worth of ETN per month. Users can control their subscriptions and permissions via a web interface (to be released).
Our patent covers all cryptocurrencies and even allows us to provide instant payments or subscriptions in any OTHER cryptocurrency via our system. The patent is over 100 pages of text and flowcharts, so it’s extremely robust and covers a number of other cryptocurrency innovations too, but I think that’s enough for now!
That’s right – we now have a protected patent that allows us to add bitcoin, Ethereum, monero or virtually any other cryptocurrency to our app and allow users to make instant crypto payments to any vendor who wants to have the convenience of instant check-out. This won’t be happening this year, as we want to get Electroneum (ETN) out there first into the market, but it gives us the ABILITY to provide this if the market demands it. We could therefore work with a large multinational vendor who had chosen a different cryptocurrency, but still leverage the Electroneum brand, as part of our strategy for brand dominance and growth.
There’s bound to be a ton of questions and there’s bound to be a lot of people trying to claim that this can’t happen or it doesn’t exist – but I assure you that the patent is filed (patent app. Number 1805708.3) and Dentons are confident of our claims, and we are going to deliver everything we’ve said we will. This single jurisdiction patent application protects the idea we apply for global patents.
It covers a number of other things too, that we’ve discovered by being the first people to ever handle this volume of cryptocurrency users in a hybrid app. Since we’ve found solutions for a lot of the problems, we’ve patented the techniques to give Electroneum the intellectual property rights, enabling us to protect the process, or even earn royalties from their use elsewhere.
One of the phrases we heard last year speaking to one of the large vendors we are in discussion with was “Where is your moat?”. What they meant by this is what is to stop someone else coming along and offering the same thing. What protects the Electroneum business model (other than our massive first mover advantage)? This patent is exactly what they were after. If gives them a reason to publicly endorse us as a fintech partner, because we are following the corporate path.
We are now protected. No new ICO can think “great idea” and take it, as it’s protected by global patent laws.
