As Cointelegraph South Africa reported, Multi-function crossover ATM operator Planet Capital has announced that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is joining its board as an advisor and director.
The move, which was confirmed to Cointelegraph by CTO Dan Sokol, marks a decisive step in Wozniak’s affiliation with blockchain infrastructure. Sokol said:
“[H]aving an engineer as innovative as Woz around to look over our shoulders and make suggestions is priceless.”
Los Angeles-based Planet Capital, whose ATM kiosks feature both advanced fiat-based operations as well as a two-way digital currency trading tool, says its aim is to significantly corner and alter the self-service payments market. CEO A. Lyle Elias said in a press release issued Tuesday:
“With an ‘All-Star’ team focused on exploiting our patent pending IP and ‘Blockchain’ technology, Planet’s Next Gen ATM kiosks, unique network architecture and state-of-the-art wallet solution will make us a major payments industry disrupter.”
Wozniak’s presence among these “all-stars” is conspicuous, and raises questions as to the relationship between the blockchain and matters closer to Apple, such as Apple Pay, in the longer term.
Within the Planet Capital project, however, the momentum behind a major rollout of ‘all-in-one’ money kiosks is palpable, the company’s board also including Atari Co-Founder Steve Mayer, Clinton Administration FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, former CFO of the Carlyle Group, John Harris, and former IBM/Seagate Executive, Ken Hardesty.
“My brain trust consists of some of Silicon Valley’s heaviest hitters,” Chairman Lee Caplin stated.
In addition to traditional ATM functions, the machines feature the ability for customers to pay bills, vendors to enable point-of-sale transactions, perform mobile top-ups, and for gift cards to be purchased and enabled from participating vendors.
