Dear Pundians,
What an action-packed year this has been for us.
From concluding our public token sale in January; to launching plans to take blockchain to the next level; to appearing at events on six continents to spread the word about blockchain adoption; to shipping our XPOS to 25 countries around the world, it’s been a jam-packed year by any definition. And it’s been our pleasure to share it with you, members of the most active community in the blockchain space and who have been our partners every step of this year.
We understand that there are speed bumps along the way as well as the tough crypto market but rest assured we are working to improve with the help of the community. While working to finalize the plan of f(x) mainnet launch and relevant details from the recent AMA session, we would like to take some time for more discussions internally, as well as with industry experts and community leaders, to ensure we come up with the best decision, including f(x)’s token metrics. We will announce the plan in January.
As we enter 2019, we want to share our progress through this report which has evolved from the usual monthly reporting format to cover what we’ve achieved in 2018.
Here’s a selection of the highlights to summarize the company’s achievements.
5,500 XPOS shipped to new and pre-order customers
In September the first batch of 5,500 XPOS began making their way to merchants in Brazil, Colombia, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Switzerland, Singapore and UK.
In total the XPOS is now in more than 25 global markets (Curacao and Peru to be added next), which is a major achievement in such a short space of time and testament to how widely word has spread about Pundi X. A world map of XPOS deployment can be viewed here: https://cmoreira.net/visited-countries-map/?map=5c1c77cc44694.
We’ve announced several distribution partnerships in the meantime, such as with Manticora Capital, our official distributor for Colombia, and our growing international network of merchants is continuously under the spotlight at our official Twitter page.
If you see an XPOS in your city in 2019, please feel free to share!
Trademark registration
The growing of our XPOS brand reached new heights in law in 2018 with the successful registration of ‘Pundi X’ and ‘XPOS’ as a trademark in Singapore and Japan.
We are in the process of extending our trademark registrations in all our major markets; work which will continue in the new year.
Secured partnerships and corporate orders to introduce the XPOS to both public and private sectors
While 2017 was all about the ways in which blockchain technology was poised to disrupt commerce, this past year has shown us that its practical uses are growing more varied by the day, from hospitality (food and beverage and tourism) to agriculture. We’ve kept up with developments and so has our client list.
In October, we announced that we will be bringing the XPOS to the public sectors for the first time in Dubai. Under a deal with our local distribution partner, ebooc & loyalty labs, the XPOS will be the hardware of choice for a plan by emCredit, the UAE’s official credit bureau and a subsidiary of the Dubai Department of Economic Development, to bring blockchain-based POS devices to government shop fronts. Citizens will be able to pay for utilities, school fees and other necessities via the Pundi XPOS on a specially produced device dedicated to running a digital version of the UAE dirham and not cryptocurrencies. The public sector uses of blockchain POS solutions are a market we see as fast expanding in the new year.
Receive orders of 300,000 XPASS cards and 50,000 cards activated.
In 2018, we’ve received orders of 300,000 XPASS cards. Among the orders, we’ve distributed 50,000+ XPASS cards in the hand of customers around the world, both directly through merchants as a point of distribution and through our regular promotional activities internationally and via partnerships.
Launch of XWallet app
Our pre-Christmas launch of the XWallet app this year marked an important new addition to the broader Pundi X ecosystem.
After testing with over 1,000 users and a rating of 4.6 for the Android version, the XWallet is a new mobile digital asset management application designed to complement or be used in place of our physical digital wallet, the XPASS card.
The XWallet allows any consumer to manage and spend their digital money connecting across their devices and external digital wallets wherever they are — in-store, online, offline or at home.
In 2019, we will continue working on upgrading the app to attract more users.
Move into the South American market
South America has long been identified as a hot spot for cryptocurrency use globally. And Pundi X has noted a high degree of demand from local merchants for our technology. We’ve responded.
We opened our Sao Paulo office in August and by year’s end we’ve grown to 5 full time staff. So too has our relationship in the region, thanks to partnerships with distributors such as BitCapital in Brazil and Manticora Capital in Colombia.
These relationships are continuing to bear fruit. It was only a little earlier this month that the apparel chain Fruta Fresca announced a national rollout of XPOS across its Colombian properties via this partnership. There will be plenty more in 2019.
Expand Pundi X’s global presence with regional office openings
Pundi X has grown steadily throughout 2018 and it’s been key to our expansion. We’ve grown from a staff of core employees numbering a little more than a dozen to an international workforce over 100. Along the way we’ve established a footprint in key international cities for steering the growth of Pundi X’s markets. These include our European HQ, London, our Sao Paulo office, offices in Korea and Japan, the original Pundi X Jakarta office and, of course, our new international headquarters in Singapore.
NPXS is listed on over 20 major exchanges
From Binance to Bittrex International, Pundi X’s markets and listings team has seized 2018 to provide as much opportunity as possible to NPXS holders.
And they have succeeded admirably. NPXS is now listed on includes more than 20 leading exchanges, such as:
- Binance
- Bittrex
- Upbit
- Bit-Z
- Indodax
- Allbit
- and more
Our discussions with major exchanges are ongoing, so expect to hear more additions to this and more engagement/events with exchanges in 2019.
The Pundi X POS is stress-tested in one of the largest musical festivals
The ULTRA TAIWAN festival was powered by Pundi X in the first large-scale display of our device’s capabilities to process high volumes of crypto transactions in an uncontrolled setting. One perfect example of such spontaneity was we supported Red Bull that grew from using two XPOS, into deploying 14 XPOS concurrently, due to their unique approach in the festival. Another fascinating trend observed was that when merchants saw the opportunity to be able to sell while on-the-move, many others followed swiftly. To the best of our knowledge, this has never been possible in the history of ULTRA TAIWAN Music Festival.
More than 40 merchants took part processing tens of thousands of transactions over a period of two days, that showed blockchain POS solution was ready for intensive use.
Launched an international series of XBlockchain summits
When we surveyed the international blockchain scene this year, we noticed a gap of activity precisely in the places where it was most needed. While conferences were well attended in Europe and America, not nearly enough attention was being paid to the markets which will drive blockchain into the 21st Century.
To that end we decided to co-sponsor the XBlockchain summits in 2018, gathering the best talent from the worlds of blockchain development, business and regulation in Indonesia, China, Lithuania, and Brazil.
Our inaugural conference, in Bali in October, drew a healthy crowd of more than 500 attendees including ministerial representatives from governments and some of the most influential voices in the development of blockchain solutions, all gathered under the banner of real-world application for blockchain technology.
Since then, a series of specialized XBlockchain summits focusing on harnessing the resources of China’s sizeable community of developers, is preparing to launch. And before mid-next-year it will be Sao Paulo’s turn when XBlockchain hits Brazil.
Initiated a hardware and self-driven decentralized ecosystem
When we set out to create a global network of payments we knew that achieving scale would be our biggest challenge. This year our attention to the problem of scaling blockchain for real-world use was unwavering.
When one of our developers set out to research existing public chains for an answer to the question of scale we found none could provide what we needed, or, their claims lacked verifiable evidence. So we made our own.
In 2019, XPOS will be able to upgraded and run on Function X, but in the meantime we’ve been putting its live and functional testnet to good use, showing the sheer breadth of applications our new ecosystem has.
Function X is not just a public chain. It is a total decentralized solution. It consists of five essential components: Function X OS, Function X Blockchain, Function X IPFS, FXTP Protocol, and Function X Decentralized Docker. All five components have one sole purpose which is to decentralize all apps, services, website, communications, and data. We’re expanding the power and uses of blockchain far beyond just financial transfers to include communication and data of all kinds and even paving the way for a decentralized internet.
f(x) ecosystem aims to create a decentralized network that does not rely on any individual, organization and structure. We aim to build the ecosystem to run autonomously.
Created a working XPhone prototype
Being able to send data, calls and messages using the Function X protocol opened our eyes to new possibilities: one of them was using blockchain for telephony.
As consumers grow increasingly suspicious of intrusions into their data by centralized carriers or monopolistic web businesses, we saw a dire need for our new protocol to be deployed in the development of a new privacy-centric cellphone: the XPhone.
As we publicly demonstrated during the debut of the XPhone in Bali in October, SMS or phone calls made through the phone are operated without the need of telco network.
Another demonstrations of its use, hailing a cab in Manhattan without the need for any centralized app as a mediator in New York in November, show how important Function X can be to the next evolution of blockchain. The implications for Pundi X itself are equally exciting.
They are transmitted via nodes on Function X. The data is also sent in a highly private, trusted, and secure way that returns control to users, rather than centralized intermediaries, over how their personal data is stored and used. A receiving node will verify the data according to the sender’s private key, approve/reject it and then transmit it, ensuring total privacy. The XPhone is slated for market release in Q3 2019.
Using decentralized blockchain solutions to meet needs in consumers’ everyday lives and to improve them will remain our mission in 2019, so you can be sure that the XPhone won’t be the last innovation built on Function X.
Selected by KPMG and H2 Ventures Fintech Top 100
Pundi X was honored to be recognized in the Fintech 100, compiled by leading global advisory firm KPMG and tech investors H2.
The fifth annual list recognizes the 100 most innovative Fintech companies in the world, among emerging and established players.
For the 2018 list we were featured alongside industry giants such as JD, Grab and Ant Financial as well as fellow ‘emerging stars’.
Token removals
In August, due to the shipment of 5,000 XPOS units and revenue generated from the retailer transactions, a total of 500,001,139 NPXS tokens were taken out from the total supply. For token removal, we will be taking approximately 8.5 billion tokens (5.7 billion NPXS and 2.8 billion tokens NPXSXEM) out of circulation. Given the bearish market this year, it has impacted the number of transactions on XPOS. Hence the majority source of the token removal will be from the company’s wallet.
After compiling and calculating all the numbers from the transactions and orders on December 31 2018, we will be able to execute the number of token removal in the first week of January.
And that’s all for an action-packed year for Pundi X. Developing and bringing to global markets the world’s first blockchain-based POS solution might well have been enough for one year. But as you have read, that journey on 2018 took us to many more places, the fruits of which will be borne in the new year.
Until then, a happy new year to the spectacular and devoted Pundi X community. We want to take this opportunity to thank you for your support in 2018. In 2019, we continue working hard to achieve our goals and bring more XPOS to more countries.
We wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year!
