DISRUPTION ALERT: Wireless Payments meet Blockchain in the Most Apropos, Adoption-ready Use-case for Cryptocurrency
Unwrapping the Vision, Genius and Strategy of BlocNATION, the World’s First dICO from Established Leader in Cashless NFC Event Payment Solutions, PouchNATION
PouchNATION: Good Vibes, Good Vision, Good Will
Kuala Lampur Malaysia, March 31st 2018, the Good Vibes Music Festival is well underway and event-goers are amp’d, feeling good, and attending completely cashless.
Wristband secured, party on.
No cash, no clutter, no worries…and all the concessions, beer, food and merch at the quick wireless scan of the secure wristband!
This isn’t the first Cashless Event by PouchNATION, Southeast Asia’s Leader in Cashless Event Management Solutions.
Those of us in the Western hemisphere may not know the name so well, but anyone who’s been to a Music Festival, Sporting Event, or even Business Conference within Southeast Asia may recall wearing a little bracelet or being given a card with a little “chip” inside, an NFC chip.
PouchNATION has been doing Cashless for the better part of 5 years, with partnerships in 9 countries, locations in 6, and an infrastructure in place for providing events with complete management and payment gateways.
What, on the surface looks like a technology company providing a seamless event-going experience, internally is a team of visionaries gradually and successfully positioning themselves within a gap in Southeast Asia that has yet to be bridged.
It’s not all about Festivals, Fun, Sports, and Business Gatherings at Pouch. Through their unique position as a payment processor, B2B provider, and User Experience expert, they have identified a need within their own market and region for which they may just have the perfect solution.
In Southeast Asia alone, only 27% of the population has a bank account. While nearly everyone has a smart phone.
…and smart phones have NFC capabilities.
…and PouchNATION specializes in NFC Cashless payment systems for events.
…and the partnerships…
We’ll cover this in detail later, but do you see where this is going?
Spoiler Alert: PouchNATION / BlocNATION is identifying a need in the market and recognizing they have the infrastructure and technology to provide for that need in a way traditional systems are provably failing…and the possibilities are abundant.
Established and Booming
BlocNATION is the new project being launched by PouchNATION in partnership with Komodo Platform (dICO is April 17, 2018) and the first truly decentralized ICO ever held.
The BlocNATION project is tied directly to PouchNATION (team included…e.g. PouchNATION’s CMO is BlocNATION’s CEO) and it’s infrastructure, technology, relationships and partnerships held and operated by PouchNATION.
Think about any ICO in which you’ve invested and which came to the industry out of nowhere. There are legitimate projects raising millions which have no past, no history, no parent company, no track record besides the team member’s previous involvements. And of course some not-so-legit projects popping up out of nowhere as well.
The first thing that really sets the BlocNATION project out from the noise is the established and innovative company behind it, and the partnership between the project and company.
So from a reputation perspective, BlocNATION is already on track to being a highly successful project and is one of the most mouthwatering projects for investors.
Track Record
Launched in 2012 with only $500,000 of seed funding, PouchNATION quickly and effectively dominated a visionary industry: Cashless, Fully Managed, User Friendly Events.
Today PouchNATION leads the Southeast Asia market with transactions surpassing $25,000,000 through over 100 events.
They have partnerships in 9 countries and counting, including multi-currency payment gateways. PouchNATION has a dominant market share in Southeast Asia in both partnerships, events and now through equipping venues with their technology.
Infrastructure
The technology PouchNATION has leveraged is NFC, the same technology behind Apple Pay and similar “proximity” secure and wireless communications systems. More about NFC later in this article.
How they leverage this technology is through a cashless payment system, access controls, and tracking of event-goers.
This means people attending, say, a sporting event don’t have to carry cash or a wallet or credit cards, etc. They receive a wristband and load up their unique account/ID with PouchNATIONs tokens.
These are internal tokens to PouchNATION’s database of course, but you can see the obvious next iteration is the Bloc Token and how BlocNATION is going to interact with existing PouchNATION tech.
This infrastructure is not just hardware related (NFC Chip-equipped wristbands and cards branded for the event, etc…card reading software and apps or devices, etc), they have developed a database driven management system, customized for each event and organizer to help them manage everything from ticket purchase, to access control of where different event-goers are allowed in the event, to analytics and marketing.
Most recently, PouchNATION announced expanding their business from simply event management software and tools/tokens, to equipping entire venues with their technology. This means an entire sports arena could be custom geared with PouchNATION’s solution for all events at that arena, and of course includes all purchases made inside the venue…cashless using the wristband or NFC enabled card.
Wireless, Cashless Payments (NFC)
So what exactly is NFC?
NFC is used by Apple Pay and Google more and more every day, with global payment processors implementing this wireless technology, making it easier for consumers to make secure purchases just about anywhere.
For this to work, in the case of Apple Pay, individuals have to add their supported card or payment method to the Apple Pay App.
The ease of use, security of the tech, and advantages to payment processors and companies alike, are some of the reasons behind this form of payment becoming more common.
PouchNATION has built their entire business model around NFC Cashless systems and implemented NFC wristbands, cards, and readers for events and venues. Because each NFC chip is unique, they can track user activity, control access to VIP or other event areas, and even improve on marketing and business models for the events or venues.
Why Cashless Matters in Southeast Asia
One of the challenges in running a multi-country payment system company such as PouchNATION, is simplifying and unifying currency, while keeping fees low. So far this is being achieved fairly well using internal tokens. Of course these tokens are only valuable within the event and there is still the process of exchanging cash into tokens, currency conversion rates, and the problem of banks.
In Southeast Asia 73% of people do not have a bank account (unbanked). Many of the 27% who do have a bank account use banks solely as a way of sending funds back home from work they do elsewhere (underbanked).
Being cashless is not easily achieved using credit cards or bank cards in this region. And with the many currencies and the need for exchanging, high fees, and bank involvement, there is a clear need for a cashless, bank-less solution, which utilizes a technology readily available to the majority.
It just so happens that, by contrast, most people in Southeast Asia have a smart phone with NFC capabilities. In fact statistics show that the ownership/usage of smart phones in this region exceeds the world average by 101%.
A cashless payment system, tied to a smartphone, not only serves a genuine need in this region, it threatens the traditional banking system, especially in regards to the underbanked.
If a system were established to allow cashless payments utilizing smartphone technology (like NFC), it would bridge a severe gap and even those sending funds home via banks would have a better, faster, cheaper system at their fingertips.
But we are talking about an Events company, right?
This is where I began seeing a vision I believe the folks at BlocNATION also see. Speculative as it may be of me, even if limited to events and venues, this is revolutionary, timely, and fitting for the market…with established infrastructure and partnerships. It’s a recipe for innovative and revolutionary success.
Why Blockchain and Who Benefits?
Those of us who’ve been around for a couple years have seen a lot of ICO drama. We’ve seen the coming and goings of great solutions, great ideas, and unfortunately some scams as well.
Some of us have become sort of jaded, often seeing yet another company jumping on the ICO bandwagon, with no real meaningful use case for Blockchain or worse, no product at all…or vaporware.
It’s often hard to spot a winning project. BlocNATION is so strategically clear it’s hard to miss the underlying vision and strategy being demonstrated.
This project is not just about events…it’s about identifying a crucial disparity within Southeast Asia in regards to banking and technology and having an existing infrastructure ideally poised to address this in a fun, exciting, brilliant, and measurably effective way.
And even better when you have the technology to branch even further into the payment systems/blockchain integration market.
Here we have a project that is building a multi-cryptocurrency dApp for Smartphones, a project with a complete infrastructure of NFC payment systems, payment gateways, existing partnerships in 9 countries, and a track record of booming success in the market to which they are serving.
So let’s talk briefly about the app and what to expect.
Presently PouchNATION has the ability to have internal tokens, tokens used only within their closed database system. BlocNATION will be launching a cryptocurrency, $BNTN, which will be used within their dApp/wallet and will be integrated within the Pouch system for paying for everything event and venue related.
This wallet is one of the most powerful dApps being developed.
It essentially combining the features of BarterDEX, the decentralized exchange by Komodo Platform, and a custom mult-currency crypto wallet specific to BlocNATION.
The BlocNATION wallet will integrate with the existing PouchNATION infrastructure and technology while providing users the ability to have more control and freedom over their funds using cryptocurrency.
Users will be able to perform Atomic Swaps of virtually any crypto, use their wallet for holding their crypto (including any tokens purchased for events), and have integration into PouchNATION’s system.
This allows users of the dApp a secure multi-currency wallet, with real-world use, holding, and exchange capabilities all on their smartphone.
Why This is Important for Blockchain
We often hear the words “Adoption” and “Real World Use Case” with regards to Blockchain technology and how it is moving toward mainstream use. Most of us understand the importance of projects which invest in bringing the blockchain and cryptocurrency into every-day usage and users.
Many of the projects just fall short of addressing or serving Blockchain’s need for more use case, more adoption, more real world.
BlocNATION will bring Blockchain into real-world adoption immediately and intrinsically. Through their thriving PouchNATION, the BlockNATION app, BNTN token and usage of Blockchain is serving not only the users who benefit, it’s serving Blockchain as a technology, a philosophy and a movement.
We are seeing a company put blockchain to real-world use, right out of the gate. This mutually beneficial approach to users and blockchain, in my opinion, is why this is the most important ICO and Blockchain project of 2018.
Poised for the Future
It’s no accident the leader in cashless event payment systems for all of Southeast Asia has partnered with the world leader in Atomic Swaps (Komodo), the technology that makes cross-chain trades seamless and simple.
WARNING: Speculation Ahead
Could it be BlocNation is positioning to become the worlds first NFC/Wireless smartphone app payment system provider for cryptocurrency payments in the real world?
Imagine having the ability to walk into your local coffee shop, ordering your latte, opening your multi-currency wallet and paying the way Apple Pay does now, except you’re using your favorite crypto.
With their partnerships in 9 countries and with multiple payment gateways, already providing seamless payments trough the Pouch internal token and ease of loading up on tokens from cash…is it possible PouchNATION could retrofit other businesses, more than just event venues, with their technology, bringing cryptocurrency wireless payments to everyday life?
With the new app they will create which is a multi currency wallet, it’s a matter of flipping a switch and this same infrastructure is poised to allow paying for goods and services utilizing wireless NFC and any cryptocurrency the user wants to use, anywhere their tech is used.
Besides being revolutionary, this is also the sort of project large financial institutions like buying.
Of course, this is only my speculation.
Regardless, the demonstrated vision and innovation by the team reveals that this project has the strategic positioning, influence, and infrastructure to make BlocNATION the biggest event in blockchain.
You can learn more about BlocNATION at https://blocnation.io and follow them on Twitter at @bloc_social
