Monthly report: a recap of activities in September

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Pundi X

9 min readOct 1, 2018

Dear Pundians,

Another busy month has wrapped up for us. This time our XPOS device did as much traveling as we did. It’s being shipped to markets all around-the-world.

Catch up on the latest developments in our business development, international partnerships and thought leadership in the September edition of our monthly recap report.

XPOS shipping underway

The first batch of 5,000 XPOS devices had begun shipping globally across Asia, Europe and South America, including markets like Brazil, Colombia, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Switzerland, Singapore and UK.

The distributors and partners which have received our XPOS devices include, but not limited to: BitCapital Brazil, Manticora Colombia, Utrust Switzerland, Ebooc Dubai, and ULTRA Taiwan.

In addition to the point of sale devices, tens of thousands of XPASS cards have been distributed this month, at events such as ULTRA, Consensus Singapore and AMCHAM in Seoul.

Some of the other remaining markets targeted by Pundi X will only be able to receive their XPOS upon the granting of required certifications by the local authorities.

Currently, applications for certifications are in progress for markets such as Brazil, Korea, Malta, Singapore, US and Canada. The application status to get the XPOS certified in some markets is moving faster vs. the rest of the markets, and that means that in terms of deployment dates, there will be delays. These delays are unexpected but we like to thank you, our community, for your continuous support and patience while we continue to work with our local partners to get the XPOS devices imported and operating live in these markets as soon as we can.

ULTRA Taiwan 2018 on-site transactions, powered by Pundi X technology

This was the world’s first major outdoor music festival integrated with blockchain and it was powered by Pundi X.

During September 8 and 9, despite heavy rain, more than 100 Pundi XPOS devices successfully processed over tens of thousands of transactions from an estimated 30,000 festival goers. Close to 40 different merchants participated in the first outdoor trial of our blockchain-powered POS devices and it passed the stress test with flying colors, successfully processing payments for top brands such as Hennessy, Budweiser and Red Bull to fuel the service in their own way.

Our CEO, Zac, was interviewed about why Pundi X chose to deploying the XPOS to such a challenging environment in Taiwan and he also offered his thoughts on our future challenges and opportunities. You can watch the video here.

NPXS Utilization from Ultra Taiwan event

As mentioned in NPXS utilization announcement, for transaction made in other tokens or fiat, we will use the proceeds to buyback NPXS, after which we will permanently remove the NPXS tokens from circulation and ensure they can never re-enter circulation.

Due to the confidentiality agreement with ULTRA Taiwan, the amount of NPXS buyback will only be disclosed in conjunction with executing several other partnership programs in Q4 2018.

Former Bank of America Executive has joined our leadership team

After a distinguished 30 year career in some of the world’s most prestigious financial institutions, Vic Tham has joined Pundi X as Chief Investment Officer.

Vic’s mandate will be to drive investments and manage a fund for developing Pundi X’s new blockchain project f(x), which is designed to power the next-generation of blockchain development and fuel advances in the technology’s size, scale and transparency.

Vic joins Pundi X from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was the Chief Operating Officer, Asia Pacific, for Global Transactions Services; he has previously held senior roles in some of the biggest names in international banking, including: Managing Director of Operational Risk at Standard Chartered Bank; and SVP & Head of Group Risk Management at Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing.

Vic said: “I have been very fortunate to have had exciting roles in securities and banking for the past three decades. I believe the next era and the future of finance lies in collaboration between fintech and banking. It is this collaboration which we will see emergence of new connectivity infrastructures for digital financial assets and the move to the cashless economy. I have seen Pundi X proprietary transformative blockchain-based technology and I am thrilled to join the team to invest into this new future of finance!”

Pundi X at Consensus Singapore, top local restaurants

Pundi X spoke at the Singaporean branch of the world’s largest blockchain convention, Consensus.

Pundi X’s solution which enables making crypto payments as easy as possible, was in the panel of “making Asian merchant adoption a reality”. (The video of the panel session can be found here).

To demonstrate our solution and support the case of making Asian merchant adoption a reality, the XPOS devices were deployed at two top restaurants, JUSTIN Flavors of Asia and Sen of Japan in Marina Bay Sands, a shopping mall which is located in the same complex where Consensus was held. For two days during the Consensus conference, the XPOS devices were used to process lunch and dinner bills at the two above-mentioned restaurants.

The team from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, were among the first to try out paying a meal in BNB (their native token and a listed currency on the first edition of the XPOS ) and to witness the speed with which a lunch bill can be processed on the blockchain.

Wrapping up the swap

The 1:1000 swap of PXS and PXSXEM for NPXS and NPXSXEM has finally wrapped up this month. We were left with a small portion of unswapped tokens which will be put to use to create an unswapped token reserve pool dedicated to a variety of purposes for the benefit of investors and the company’s continued growth. The decision to keep the unswapped tokens in reserved wallets has been advised by the legal counsel in order to ensure Pundi X operate in a sustainable way.

These include:

Refund all PXS tokens accidentally sent to our NPXS smart contract. A total of more than 92 million NPXS will be sent to token holders this way.
The remaining tokens will be divided into four, each part to be used for: a marketing budget for activating XPOS merchants, Corporate Social Responsibility programs, risk management and community building activities.

The reserved tokens will be held in dedicated and fully disclosed multi-sig wallets and will not receive monthly unlocked tokens. Further details, including all the facts and the figures relating to what was ultimately a long but highly successful swap process are outlined in full here.

AMCHAM conference on business uses for cryptocurrency

On September 6 Pundi X addressed hundreds of representatives from world-leading multinational companies such as LG and 7–11 at an AMCHAM Korea seminar on the future of cryptocurrencies.

Pundi X’s Director of International Partnerships, Stephen DeMeulenaere, delivered a keynote address to some of Korea’s most influential business leaders at the seminar.

“With nearly one-in-three Koreans owning cryptocurrencies it’s only natural that they’re going to be spending them rather than holding them in their bedroom at night,” he said. “In terms of mass adoption there are many signs that we’re at 5 am [close to dawn]’.”

More than 300 business leaders were given the opportunity to pick up a latest-edition of Pundi XPASS and try out our tech at the coffee stand. More updates on our ongoing collaboration with AMCHAM will be released in due course; a full recap of the event is available here.

Chief Legal Counsel David Ben Kay addresses blockchain pioneers

Organized by Blockchain Pangea, Singapore’s Blockchain Pioneers Summit was a major part of Singapore’s blockchain week.

Our own David Ben Kay, the former general counsel for Microsoft China and a board member of the Ethereum Foundation during its critical expansion phase, was recognised for his global leadership with an invitation to speak on emerging issues in international regulations for blockchain technologies.

Merchants and distributors unbox XPOS

We have started receiving photos and videos from merchants and distributors who are sharing their XPOS unboxing videos. Live transactions are also happening in the countries where our business development team have visited.

Sneak peek of the XWallet app

In September, we’re building up to the release of an important new component in the Pundi eco-system: the Pundi X Wallet.

It’s our new mobile digital asset management application that can be used to complement, or remotely manage, our XPASS card, or in its stead as a mobile-only cashless payment option. When used together, the XWallet will allow any consumer to manage and spend their digital money wherever they are — in store, online, offline, or at home.

The XWallet can be topped up from any other digital asset wallet, or be used as a standalone payment option in stores. The transactions can be processed via QR-code scanning that immediately deducts payments from a user’s balance before later uploading the full transaction to the blockchain.

Q3 roadmap review

We are pleased to announce that we have completed most of our targets in Q3 2018, including setting up the office in Brazil to serve as headquarters in South America, conclusion of the NPXS swap and establishment of the government partnership which has been announced in August.

Crypto business in Africa and South America has been stronger than we expected; therefore, we are prioritizing our resource in these two continents. This also means our plan of establishing an office in North America in Q3 2018 has been affected. However, we keep maintaining marketing activities in North America markets.

More details about Function X to be revealed at the XBlockchain Summit

Momentum is building in the lead-up to the annual conference which we’re co-organizing with the Indonesian Blockchain Association, XBlockchain Summit.

Held in parallel to this year’s annual general meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group, the summit is bringing together some of the most influential names in government, technology and business, including the Finance Minister of Lithuania, Vilius Sapoka, Paul Sin from the APAC Blockchain Lab at Deloitte, Susan Oh, from the United Nations’ Blockchain for Impact, Dharmendar Sesungkur, Mauritius’ Finance Minister, Lotte Schou-Zibell, the head of finance at the Asian Development Bank.

In this summit, we will disclose more detail about Function X, the next generation of the blockchain technology we are building.

To celebrate the inaugural year of the Xblockchain Summit, we’re providing our community a special chance to redeem tickets at half price. Places are limited so sign up quickly.