Tag: cryptocurrency ledger

Forbes Cryptocurrency Awards 2020: The $3 Trillion Bitcoin Marketing Campaign

For the first time ever, we are publishing the Forbes Crypto Awards. Not everyone will be happy they’re on the list. Fed chairman Jerome Powell takes the honors as our person of the year: In a pandemic year when the Fed printed so much stimulus money that the central bank saw its balance sheet nearly double in size, our Forbes Awards judge Anthony Pompliano of Morgan Creek Digital credits Powell with running a “$3 trillion marketing campaign for bitcoin.”

Here are our picks for the best products, the most intriguing people and the most interesting trends in crypto this year.

Our inaugural Forbes Crypto Awards were selected in consultation with Anthony Pompliano, who helps manage two crypto funds at New York City-based Morgan Creek, which has $1.5 billion in assets under management, as well as his own recently launched endeavor, Pomp Investments.

The Forbes Person Of The Year In Crypto: Jerome Powell

In an attempt to prevent the U.S. economy from collapsing under pandemic pressure, Powell had the U.S. Federal Reserve buy up a record amount of treasuries, effectively printing more than $3 trillion in new money and nearly doubling the central bank’s balance sheet. Venture firm Pantera Capital called the infusion “two centuries of debt in one month,” creating an environment in which previously skeptical investors including Wall Street whales like Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller started taking cryptocurrency seriously. “I think Jerome Powell did the things that he and his colleagues believed were the best things to do in the short term to mitigate pain from the pandemic and economic crisis,” says Pompliano. “But in the pursuit of mitigating short-term pain, they were highlighting for everyone, from retail investors to the largest institutions in the world, what was going to happen over the next decade or two.”

Best Product: Square’s Cash App

In August 2018, Jack Dorsey’s payments giant Square, now valued at $96 billion, was among the first mainstream enterprises to allow bitcoin purchases in all 50 states. Bitcoin has proved a real boon to the company, which generated $1.6 billion in revenue from the asset in the third quarter, an 11-fold increase year over year. “I tend to think that new users give a good signal for something that is usable,” says Pompliano. “Not just by the crypto enthusiasts but by the everyday person, the mainstream.”

Most Intriguing Newcomer: Michael Saylor

Among a slew of names that bought bitcoin for the first time this year, perhaps none were more surprising, or made a bigger impact, than the CEO of struggling MicroStrategy, a Tysons Corner, Virginia-based business software firm. Over the course of five months starting in August, Saylor revealed that his smallish outfit, which competes against giants like Oracle and SAP in data analytics, had bought $475 million worth of bitcoin. That made bitcoin the publicly traded company’s biggest treasury asset. While Citi recently downgraded MicroStrategy as a result of the extremely aggressive play, Pompliano thinks it’s exactly that audacity that makes Saylor so intriguing. “He came out of nowhere,” says Pompliano. “And he has not only lit the bitcoin and crypto world on fire, but he has very quickly ascended to be one of the top bulls in the way he talks about what he’s doing. There’s no hedging in the way he talks about it; there’s no surrender.”

Disruptive Innovator: Caitlin Long

This former head of Morgan Stanley’s pension advisory group was once a rising star in traditional finance. Then, after helping write cryptocurrency-friendly laws in her home state of Wyoming, she was unanimously approved for one of the state’s new bitcoin banking charters in October. “She is disrupting the traditional regulatory framework,” says Pompliano. “And obviously, she was very instrumental there. But then to go build a company, to leverage those rules? I look at that as disruptive in a unique way.”

Outstanding Firm: Ark Invest

After experimenting with many different crypto strategies over the years, Ark’s CEO and chief investment officer Catherine Wood has shuffled most of her ETF firm’s direct bitcoin exposure into a single fund dedicated to “innovative” assets. But a number of other Ark ETFs have indirect exposure in the form of stakes in Silvergate Bank, which banks cryptocurrency businesses; Square and PayPal, which let their customers use bitcoin; and Nvidia, the Santa Clara, California-based computer chip manufacturer whose hardware has long been favored by many bitcoin miners. It’s working: Wood’s flagship fund is up 150% this year, and Ark’s assets under management have skyrocketed to $15 billion. “Cathie is one of those people who she’s not known just for bitcoin, so we kind of dilute her impact,” says Pompliano. “But she believed early; she was the first institution to really kind of go after the GBTC trade. She’s been right. She’s been right about a lot of stuff.”

Catherine Wood
Catherine Wood Eli Warren for Forbes

Annus Horribilis: Libra

Libra exploded onto the cryptocurrency scene in June 2019 when Facebook announced the project would use the blockchain to create a single asset backed by a number of global currencies, including the dollar, the euro and the yen. The original idea was that the Libra would be managed by payments giants like Visa, PayPal, Mastercard and Stripe. But U.S. lawmakers pretty much immediately freaked out, calling Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to Capitol Hill to explain his work. Most of Facebook’s best-known payment partners quickly backed out.

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After many compromises to the original vision, a watered-down—although possibly still successful—version of the currency, now called Diem and backed one-to-one by the U.S. dollar, is scheduled to launch next year. “They, me and everyone else underestimated how swiftly and how powerful regulators and governments can be when they decide to attack,” says Pompliano, who worked at Facebook 15 years ago. “In terms of the absolute height of promise, possibility, etc. to the current state, that delta, I don’t think that we’ve seen anything fall as hard as Libra.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images

Forbes Forecast: Bitcoin corporate treasuries

MicroStrategy purchased $475 million worth of bitcoin this year and now has plans to raise another $650 million to purchase more; Square invested about $50 million into the cryptocurrency; and New York City-based asset manager Stone Ridge revealed it owned $115 million worth of the asset. Now that financial giants like Northern Trust, managing $1 trillion worth of assets, have revealed plans to help institutional investors safely custody crypto, it’s a trend that is likely only going to continue. “I think that we will see very, very, very large companies—Fortune 100-, Fortune 500-type companies—putting bitcoin on their balance sheet in 2021,” says Pompliano.

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Michael del Castillo

Michael del Castillo

I report on how blockchain and cryptocurrencies are being adopted by enterprises and the broader business community. My coverage includes the use of cryptocurrencies and extends to non-cryptocurrency applications of blockchain in finance, supply chain management, digital identity and a number of other use cases. Previously, I was a staff reporter at blockchain news site, CoinDesk, where I covered the increasing willingness of enterprises to explore how blockchain could make their work more efficient and in some cases, unnecessary. I have been covering blockchain since 2011, been published in the New Yorker, and been nationally syndicated by American City Business Journals. My work has been published in Blockchain in Financial Markets and Beyond by Risk Books and I am regularly cited in industry research reports. Since 2009 I’ve run Literary Manhattan, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization dedicated to showing Manhattan’s rich literary heritage.

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Ethereum ETH Price Performance (+7%) | TrustSwap VISA Integration with Connect Financial | Crypto.com Weekly DeFi Update | Litecoin LTC SegWit Adoption and Lightning Network Updates | Binance, SushiSwap and Cover Protocol (-97%) Hack Updates | GreenPro +101% After $100 million Bitcoin Investment Fund | MicroStrategy Stock NASDAQ: MSTR Is Up +12% | Marathon Patent Group to purchase 70,000 Antminer S-19 ASIC miners for $170 million from Bitmain | Forbes 2020 Crypto Awards | Polkastarter tweeted about the listing date of $XED on Polkastarter | REN Protocol $sUSD and $sBTC Updates #bitcoin, #ethereum, #crypto, #greenpro, #microstrategy, #litecoin, #REN, #BTC, #ETH, #LTC, #NASDAQ 🔷 ALTCOIN TRADING SIGNALS – https://t.me/AltcoinBuzzChat 🔥 TOP CRYPTO NEWS – https://www.altcoinbuzz.io 🚀 FREE NEWSLETTER – http://eepurl.com/dnIEz1 🔶 TWITTER – https://twitter.com/altcoinbuzzio 💡 FACEBOOK – https://www.facebook.com/altcoinbuzzio Cryptocurrency And Bitcoin Visa Card – GET $25 FREE ON ► CRYPTO.COM https://platinum.crypto.com/r/ab *Code is AB Trade On Binance! ► https://www.binance.com/en/register?r… *Code is UAMKZ47P Trade On AAX ► AAX EXCHANGE https://www.aax.com/invite?inviteCode… CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET PRICES AND DATA ► COINGECKO https://gcko.io/altcoin-buzz 🔺 NOTE If you use the above referral links, we receive a commission at no additional cost to you. ⏰ Timestamps 0:00 Introduction 2:10 Ethereum ETH Price Performance (+7%) 3:35 TrustSwap VISA Integration with Connect Financial 4:45 Crypto.com Weekly DeFi Update 5:36 Litecoin LTC SegWit Adoption and Lightning Network Updates 6:32 Binance, SushiSwap and Cover Protocol (-97%) Hack Updates 9:33 GreenPro +101% After $100 million Bitcoin Investment Fund 13:46 MicroStrategy Stock NASDAQ: MSTR Is Up +12% 16:54 Marathon Patent Group to purchase 70,000 Antminer S-19 ASIC miners for $170 million from Bitmain 17:32 Forbes 2020 Crypto Awards 20:43 Polkastarter tweeted about the listing date of $XED on Polkastarter 21:10 REN Protocol $sUSD and $sBTC Updates References: ETH video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZzNm… TESLA video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKjE1… Jeff Kirdeikis interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqXd…https://twitter.com/TrustSwap/status/…https://trustswap.medium.com/trustswa…https://www.altcoinbuzz.io/cryptocurr…https://twitter.com/cryptocom/status/…https://twitter.com/litecoin/status/1…https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status…https://twitter.com/binance/status/13…https://twitter.com/binance/status/13…https://twitter.com/JulSwap/status/13…https://twitter.com/AlexSaundersAU/st…https://cointelegraph.com/news/cover-…https://twitter.com/binance/status/13…https://twitter.com/blockfolio/status…https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/…https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/grnqhttps://seekingalpha.com/news/3647521…https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/…https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSTR?…https://twitter.com/mokamoto/status/1…https://www.globenewswire.com/news-re…https://twitter.com/ForbesCrypto/stat…https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeld…https://twitter.com/Exeedme/status/13…https://twitter.com/renprotocol/statu…

JPMorgan Chase Positively Wades Into Crypto After Years of Hate

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The financial services giant and bank JPMorgan Chase & Co have seemingly reversed on a long-held stance, that crypto is bad, by beginning to service U.S. cryptoasset exchanges Gemini and Coinbase.

JPMorgan’s apparent reversal comes after years of institutionalized disdain for crypto, with the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon being a vociferous critic circa 2017. According to Bloomberg, JPMorgan had been conducting due diligence on the exchanges “for months” before making the move. The bank’s adoption of crypto signals what can only be a highly regulated crypto-fiat landscape.

During 2019, JPMorgan had in fact started to visibly thaw on the subject of crypto, even experimenting with their own distributed ledger tech in the form of the so-called “JPM Coin”.

Dimon displayed during an interview his awareness of the competition posed by crypto, directing his people to assume that crypto and/or Fintech was “coming […] to eat your lunch.” Despite this, he was bearish on the prospect of Facebook’s Libra project succeeding or even launching, saying in October 2019 that it would “never happen”.

PMorgan’s publically traded stock has fallen recently, retreating from all-time-highs set in December 2019 in February, even before the coronavirus pandemic started to wreck the markets in March. It is down about 37% from those highs, trading now at about $87.

By: Colin Muller

Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pixabay.com

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J.P. Morgan Chase will be the first major U.S. bank to create its own cryptocurrency. In trials set to start in a few months, a tiny fraction of the $6 trillion the bank lends to corporations will happen over something called ‘JPM Coin.’ The digital token created by engineers at the New York-based bank to instantly settle payments between clients. The “Squawk Box” crew discusses the possible implications of this roll out for crypto investors. » Subscribe to CNBC: http://cnb.cx/SubscribeCNBC About CNBC: From ‘Wall Street’ to ‘Main Street’ to award winning original documentaries and Reality TV series, CNBC has you covered. Experience special sneak peeks of your favorite shows, exclusive video and more. Connect with CNBC News Online Get the latest news: http://www.cnbc.com/ Find CNBC News on Facebook: http://cnb.cx/LikeCNBC Follow CNBC News on Twitter: http://cnb.cx/FollowCNBC Follow CNBC News on Google+: http://cnb.cx/PlusCNBC Follow CNBC News on Instagram: http://cnb.cx/InstagramCNBC

Alibaba, Tencent, Five Others To Receive First Chinese Government Cryptocurrency

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China’s central bank will launch a state-backed cryptocurrency and issue it to seven institutions in the coming months, according to a former employee of one of the institutions who is now an independent researcher. Paul Schulte, who worked as global head of financial strategy for China Construction Bank until 2012, says the largest bank in the world, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the second largest bank in the world, his former employer, the Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China; two of China’s largest financial technology companies, Alibaba and Tencent; and Union Pay, an association of Chinese banks, will receive the cryptocurrency.

A separate source, who’s involved in the development of the cryptocurrency, dubbed DC/EP (Digital Currency/Electronic Payments), confirmed that the seven institutions would be receiving the new asset when it launches, adding that an eighth institution could also be among the first tier of recipients. The source declined to provide the name of the additional company. Speaking under terms of anonymity, the source, who previously worked for the Chinese government, confirmed that the technology behind the cryptocurrency has been ready since last year and that the cryptocurrency could launch as soon as November 11, China’s busiest shopping day, known as Singles Day.

At the time of launch, the recipient institutions will then be responsible for dispersing the cryptocurrency to 1.3 billion Chinese citizens and others doing business in the renminbi, China’s fiat currency, according to the source. The source added that the central bank hopes the currency will eventually be made available to spenders in the United States and elsewhere through relationships with correspondent banks in the West. “That’s the plan, but that won’t happen right away,” the source said.

The plan to use a diverse set of China’s trusted intuitions to disperse the cryptocurrency is reminiscent of a number of other ideas currently percolating around the world. For instance, Facebook’s planned libra cryptocurrency will be backed by a basket of currencies issued by central banks with support from companies like Mastercard and Uber in the United States, Vodaphone in England and Mercado Pago in Argentina. And last week, Bank of England governor Mark Carney floated the idea of a new currency backed by a number of central banks to replace the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.

What sets China’s DC/EP apart from libra and Carney’s “synthetic hegemonic currency” (SHC), according to Shulte, is that while libra is little more than early-stage computer code and the SHC doesn’t appear to have gone much further than Carney’s mind, the Chinese cryptocurrency is ready to launch. “China is barreling forward on reforms and rolling out the cryptocurrency,” says Schulte, who now runs an eponymous bank research firm. “It will be the first central bank to do so.”

At the time of publication, neither the People’s Bank of China nor any of the seven institutions mentioned by Schulte had responded to Forbes requests to confirm or deny his claim. However, the two-tiered strategy, where the central bank creates the currency and others distribute it, aligns with previously unreported statements made by Mu Changchun, deputy director of the Paying Division of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the new head of China’s cryptocurrency research lab. In a speech on August 10 at the China Finance 40 Forum, since revised and posted on the PBOC’s WeChat channel, Mu described the central bank’s “two-tiered” system, wherein the bank would create the cryptocurrency and a small group of trusted commercial businesses would “pay the central bank 100% in full” to be allowed to distribute it.

In addition to preventing regional banks and other organizations from being disintermediated, Mu said the two-tiered system is designed to “curb” public demand for other cryptographic assets, consolidate China’s national currency sovereignty, ensure that the central bank maintains control over monetary policy affecting the currency, increase the likelihood of people using the currency, distribute the risk of having all the authority directly in the hands of the central bank and encourage competition between the organizations that receive the cryptocurrency.

“This dual delivery system is suitable for our national conditions,” said Mu. “It can not only use existing resources to mobilize the enthusiasm of commercial banks but also smoothly improve the acceptance of the digital currency.”

The composition of the organizations Schulte says will receive the DC/EP also aligns with Mu’s comments. Later in his speech, Mu added that only after the technical specifications for the DC/EP were completed in 2018 did the central bank realize the similarity between its design and that of libra, the cryptocurrency being developed by Facebook and about 30 other early-stage partners.

One key difference, according to Mu, is that while libra is being designed to handle 1,000 transactions per second, the DC/EP was designed to handle 300,000 transactions per second. For context, Mu added that during last year’s Singles Day the peak volume of all transactions in China was 92,771 transactions per second, dwarfing what the other platforms could support, but well within the DC/EP specifications. “At present, we belong to a state of horse racing,” Mu said according to the translation.

How Blockchain Went From Bitcoin To Big Business| 37:20

The DC/EP can achieve this kind of volume only because it is not a “pure blockchain architecture,” according to Mu, and therefore it doesn’t need to wait for groups of transactions to settle in a block. Like other permissioned blockchains that not anyone can use, the DC/EP is centrally managed, in this case by the central bank, meaning the digital currency remains a liability of the bank and the debtor/creditor relationship is unchanged, according to Mu. Also, instead of using an algorithm to limit supply, like bitcoin, Mu says the PBoC itself will control supply. Crucially, Mu says, the DC/EP is being designed to replace the physical notes and coins in circulation, not the renminbi sitting in bank accounts in a digital form.

“The central bank’s digital currency can be circulated as easily as cash,” said Mu. “Which is conducive to the circulation and internationalization of the renminbi.”

Whether anyone outside China would actually use a digital renminbi for transactions in their own country is unclear. As the Bank of England governor’s comments about replacing the U.S. dollar indicate, much of the world is tired of having their financial stability tied to the United States’ monetary system. But China may not be the best alternative. Earlier this month, as part of the escalating trade war between the United States and China, U.S. President Trump accused China of being a “currency manipulator.” After China’s renminbi fell to its lowest in 11 years, hitting 6.9225 renminbi per dollar on August 5, according to a Financial Times report, it has recovered significantly, trading at 7.15 renminbi per dollar today. While China has denied the charge and called the U.S. “protectionist” in a press statement, the perception of manipulation could be harmful to broader adoption of a digital currency linked to the renminbi.

In December 2017, another country accused of devaluing its currency, Venezuela, revealed plans for its own cryptocurrency, backed by oil and called the petro. After much hullabaloo, the currency somewhat officially launched in 2018, but it isn’t available on most international exchanges because of a U.S. embargo and has been almost impossible to accurately value. Another obstacle to adoption could be uncertainty about the benefits of a technology that’s intended to replace fiat currency but is still under centralized control. While it’s obvious that any central bank wishing to more closely observe how citizens are using a cryptocurrency would prefer a transparent ledger like the bitcoin blockchain, which makes transactions easily traceable, most of the benefits to users of current blockchains, such as instant settlement and digital transactions without the need of a middleman, could be undermined by central control.

One person who’s not concerned about the obstacles to adoption of China’s cryptocurrency is Charles Liu, chairman of HAO International, a private equity firm investing over $700 million in Chinese growth companies. After largely focusing on solar, organic fertilizer, and wastewater treatment technologies since 2012, Liu says he is an angel investor in “the first blockchain company to be able to sign an official contract with the People’s Bank” of China.

Liu declined to reveal the name of the firm or its technology but lent support to Mu’s comments about the potential benefits to businesses using China’s cryptocurrency. In addition to being a more efficient way to track money laundering, bribery and other transactions, Liu says, the cryptocurrency will give banks increased confidence in the creditworthiness of borrowers, let merchants receive payments instantly and lower transaction fees. While Liu says that banks in the United States have been resistant to such improvements that eat away at their bottom line, he adds that China doesn’t have that problem, because the government owns the banks.

“What will facilitate commercial transactions and enhance efficiency, the central government decides and they go ahead and do it,” says Liu, adding that “China’s strategic plan is to integrate more closely with the rest of the world. Cryptocurrency is just one of the means to have a more internationalized renminbi. It’s all strategic. It’s all long term.”

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Michael del Castillo

I report on how blockchain and cryptocurrencies are being adopted by enterprises and the broader business community. My coverage includes the use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple, and extends to non-cryptocurrency applications of blockchain in finance, supply chain management, digital identity and a number of other use cases. Previously, I was a staff reporter at blockchain news site, CoinDesk, where I covered the increasing willingness of enterprises to explore how blockchain could make their work more efficient and in some cases, unnecessary. I have been covering blockchain since 2011, been published in the New Yorker, and been nationally syndicated by American City Business Journals. My work has been published in Blockchain in Financial Markets and Beyond by Risk Books and I am regularly cited in industry research reports. Since 2009 I’ve run Literary Manhattan, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization dedicated to showing Manhattan’s rich literary heritage.

Source: https://www.forbes.com

China’s central bank is reportedly on the verge of launching a national digital currency. Investigative Journalist Ben Swann joins Scottie Nell Hughes to discuss the implications. He argues that at some point every country will have its own digital currency. And that there’s “nothing attractive” about such currencies as they’re no better than traditional government-backed fiat currency. #NVHughes #QuestionMore #RTAmerica Find RT America in your area: http://rt.com/where-to-watch/ Or watch us online: http://rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/ Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RTAmerica Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/RT_America

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News & Politics

Facebook Defends Libra Cryptocurrency in Sometimes Hostile Senate Hearing

Ahead of the launch of its new global cryptocurrency, Facebook (FB – Get Report) sent its crypto chief David Marcus to the Senate Tuesday to face questioning from the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

The mixed reaction Marcus received among senators was mostly divided along party lines, with some of the toughest questioning coming from Democratic Senators still skeptical of the company in the wake of the Russian election hacking scandal that Democrats blame for their candidate’s loss in the 2016 presidential election.

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Senator Mark Warren (D-VA) stated that “Facebook has a history of buying or copying competing technologies,” before demanding that Marcus assure the panel that competing digital wallets wouldn’t be hindered on WhatsApp and Messenger, two of Facebook’s most popular products.

Marcus went back and forth with Warner before assuring Warner that users would be able to send and receive non-Libra digital currencies on Facebook’s networks. But Marcus would not commit to embedding those competing currencies on its platforms.

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) baldly stated that “Facebook is dangerous,” saying that the company has continued to misuse customer data while continually referring to each instance as a “learning experience.”

Brown concluded his remarks by saying that “it takes a breathtaking amount of arrogance to look at that record” and believe that the next move for the company should be to create a digital currency.

Republican Senators were more forgiving for the most part, with Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) applauding the company’s efforts to provide financial services for the under-banked.

“I want to make clear that we are only at the beginning of this journey,” Marcus said. “We expect the review of Libra to be one of the most extensive ever. Facebook will not offer the Libra currency until we have addressed the concerns and receive appropriate approvals.”

Marcus also stated the Calibra network will have the “highest standards” when it comes to privacy and that the social and financial data will be completely separated.

Users will have to provide an authentic government ID so sign up for Calibra and will not be able to register by simply using their existing Facebook profiles.

Marcus stressed Calibra’s independence from Facebook, stating that the company has taken the lead in developing the technology but that it would give up the lead once the digital currency is launched.

“We will not control Libra and will be one of over 100 participants that will govern over the currency,” Marcus said. ” We will have to gain people’s trust if we want people to use our network over the hundreds of competing companies.”

Facebook shares were up 0.18% to $204.27 on Tuesday early afternoon and are up more than 55% this year.

Facebook is a holding in Jim Cramer’s Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells FB? Learn more now.

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Source: Facebook Defends Libra Cryptocurrency in Sometimes-Hostile Senate Hearing

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Can Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Power Payments in a Japanese Bar?

A bar in Japan is teaming up with a locally-based lightning startup to let customers pay for sparkling wine and soft drinks using the experimental payments network.

For the month of June, the Japan-based lightning startup Nayuta will be partnering with Awabar Fukouka to trial the payment system in what they’re calling a “field test.”

The Lightning Network is seen by its supporters as the best way to scale bitcoin so that more people can use the payment system at once, but the technology is still rather experimental and even risky to use. To that end, Nayuta sees this project as an way to further analyze how the technology works in the real world and to find out what still needs to be done to make it easier to use.

Though Awabar said their role is “small,” as the bar did not design the technology (Nayuta did), they’re “delighted” to participate, offering a place for the experimental technology to be tested in a brick-and-mortar context.

The company said in a statement:

“We hope it helps familiarize the community with the lightning network payment system.”

The following video shows how the point of sale app (created by Nayuta and run on the open source payment processor BTCPay) will look for customers purchasing their drinks:

Nayuta is known for helping to draw up specifications for the lightning network and recently launched its own implementation of the budding payment layer geared specifically for connected devices or the Internet of Things (IoT).

The idea is that as the tech components grow less expensive, more devices such as refrigerators and TVs will connect to the internet for data collection.

Source: Pivot – Blockchain Community

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