A crypto payment infrastructure provider has revealed a new partnership worth millions of euros.
Eligma says Bitcoin.com and Switzerland’s Pangea Blockchain Fund have contributed 4 million euros (about $4.4 million) to the continued global expansion of Elipay — infrastructure enabling merchants in brick-and-mortar stores to accept instant payments in a plethora of cryptocurrencies. The company says this makes it one of the few startups from the 2018 public crowdsale period to continuously demonstrate the utility of its token and products.
The new round of investment will see Roger Ver, the founder of Bitcoin.com, become an Eligma board member, and a radical rebrand is planned as the company strives to reach new merchants.
Dejan Roljic, the CEO of Eligma, says a major sticking point with crypto payments at present is how it can take several minutes for transactions to be confirmed — a downside that’s described as “unacceptable in daily shopping.” He said Elipay saves time and enables purchases to be cleared instantaneously — with businesses spared from crypto volatility thanks to how funds are immediately converted into fiat.
The entrepreneur added: “The development of finance is going towards cash becoming a thing of the past. Among other things, this is because doing business with it is quite time consuming and expensive. We must not forget that cryptocurrencies were envisioned as the electronic cash of the future.”
According to Roljic, merchants and companies the world over are regularly getting in touch with Eligma — eager to see how cryptocurrencies can enhance their business operations and open the door to new consumers. “This is not only an important recognition of all our hard work and persistence, but is also proof of the practical utility of our ideas and solutions,” the executive explained.
Eligma’s new partners are excited
For Bitcoin.com and the Pangea Blockchain Fund, the potential of Eligma and Elipay knows no limits. William Duplessie, who co-founded Pangea, believes the crypto platform will prove especially beneficial in countries where high rates of inflation mean making purchases in fiat currency is expensive and impractical.
Ver, who was one of the first investors in Bitcoin, said his company was motivated to support Eligma because it is confident the platform can “make it easier and easier for more people in more and more countries around the world [...] to use cryptocurrencies in general.”
Making crypto truly mainstream
Eligma says its goal is to make cryptocurrencies part of daily life — helping them become mainstream payment methods accepted as a matter of course by online and offline stores alike. Consumers can complete purchases in Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin, Ether and the platform’s native ELI token — and a universal loyalty program means shoppers are rewarded whenever they buy goods and services using ELI.
The Elipay app currently has over 20,000 users, and the Bitcoin.com Wallet boasts 4 million. By opening up its infrastructure to other crypto wallets, the platform is hoping to catalyze adoption even further. Currently, more than 440 locations across Slovenia and Croatia accept crypto through Elipay technology on a daily basis — hotels, shops and restaurants among them. This is an increase from the 240 locations Cointelegraph reported on in January 2019. Tus — one of Slovenia’s biggest grocery chains, with 14 supermarkets and tens of thousands of products on offer — has also begun accepting Elipay.
In the coming months, the company envisages that its payment infrastructure will undergo an extensive rebrand to become GoCrypto, with the aim of establishing global standards for crypto payments.
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