Zac Cheah, the CEO at Pundi X, a crypto PoS (point-of-sale) machine manufacturer and developer, has said that the global cryptocurrency sector will be equipped with more than 100,000 crypto PoS machines by 2021.
In an interview with ZDNet Korea, Cheah said :
“In the next three years, at least 100,000 crypto PoS machines will be distributed. In the past six months, merchants have requested 25,000 crypto PoS machines from Pundi X.”
As Starbucks chairman Howard Schwartz previously said, multi-billion dollar conglomerates outside of the cryptocurrency and finance sector are currently skeptical toward digital assets like bitcoin and ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain protocol, due to their lack of merchant adoption. He said:
“I personally believe that there is going to be a one or a few legitimate trusted digital currencies off of the blockchain technology. And that legitimacy and trust in terms of its consumer application will have to be legitimized by a brand and a brick and mortar environment, where the consumer has trust and confidence in the company that is providing the transaction.”
Currently, merchants have three key issues that are preventing mainstream retail adoption of cryptocurrencies:
By creating PoS machines that can both support various cryptocurrencies and existing payment methods like credit card transactions, Pundi X has solved the issue of cryptocurrency integration. But, volatility and high fees still remain as key issues.
The emergence of stablecoins such as Tether, TrueUSD, CircleUSD, and Basis have provided merchants an option to accept digital assets whose value is hedged to that of the US dollar to eliminate volatility.
As for the high fees of cryptocurrencies, most public blockchain protocols including Bitcoin and Ethereum have made significant progress in the development of two-layer scaling solutions that are capable of processing micro-transactions or extremely small payments with nearly zero fees.
Hence, in the mid-term, the first two issues of digital assets pertaining to volatility and high fees will most likely be solved.
Cheah said that crypto PoS machines can be useful in regions like South Korea and China that already have nearly 90 percent adoption of credit cards and mobile payment applications such as Alipay, Samsung Pay, and KakaoPay, because Pundi XPOS supports mobile payment apps including Alipay, Samsung Pay, and WeChat Pay, while facilitating payments from bank-issued cards.
But, simply supporting cryptocurrencies will not be sufficient to convince merchants to switch from their existing payment infrastructure to crypto PoS machines. Cheah noted that the company’s product depends on its belief that digital assets will become the default payment method of the global economy in the long-term.
As a leading crypto exchange market that accounts for nearly 35 percent of global crypto trades, Cheah said that South Korea is one of the few key markets Pundi X will focus on in the near future.
“Given that South Korea accounts for 35 percent of global crypto trades, the demand for cryptocurrency acceptance by merchants from local investors will increase rapidly,” said Cheah.
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