Not Everyone Is a Fan of Current Digital Wallets
The era of e-payment and going cashless is currently at its peak. Cryptocurrency was the number one topic of conversation in tech last year. All that being said, we should be expecting digital wallet platforms which offer quick and convenient transactions — after all, weren’t slow transactions exactly what cryptocurrency was designed to combat? — yet, many large platforms fall short in this regard. Due to the sudden boom in crypto-linked stocks, many servers are unable to accommodate new members. Renowned cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin take a long time to mine and process, causing large problems with liquidity among e-wallet platforms nowadays.
Certainly, we have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to functional wallet services. Here is a list of several digital wallets and how they differ from one another.
COINHAKO
Founded in 2014, CoinHako is a digital wallet service based in Singapore for consumers to buy, sell and secure their Bitcoins, which later accommodated to support Ethereum. It was in fact the first insured Asian Bitcoin Exchange in Southeast Asia, and over the years it has grown successful, garnering nationwide reputation for its usability.
However, recently the exchange has been receiving flak due to its steadily increasing exchange rates and low customer support. As one reviewer said on BitTrust.org, “Half the time, deposits are down… they have been having issues with liquidity providers and are unable to accommodate new users.”
BLOCKCHAINS.MY
Blockchains.My is an isolated mobile wallet developed using Blockchain technology, mobile devices, and advanced security biometric identification systems. It is based in Southeast Asia and was launched recently in 2017. It functions by the Peer-To-Peer (P2P) method, where you can locate merchants accepting cryptocurrencies, as well as buyers and sellers on a map, and has a user chat option that lets you communicate with other users. Though an innovative idea, this isolated system only works when one owns cryptocurrency previously, or when there are merchants using the platform, which may cause a tad bit of inconvenience. And like CoinHako, it experiences issues with liquidity and customer support.
JAXX WALLET
Jaxx is an independent Bitcoin wallet that’s available for most devices, and supports major altcoins as well. It is a well-reviewed platform and has a great design and user interface. It lets users exchange cryptocurrencies, e.g. from Bitcoin to Ethereum and vice versa, a function lacking in many other wallets. It is a hot wallet though, a type of wallet that is connected to the internet, making it more susceptible to hackers. However, it’s definitely a great platform for day-to-day use; a hardware wallet should be used for large quantities.
With its great functionalities, one wishes it could have been built to integrate other sorts of services into the wallet as it would certainly have elevated the practicality of the wallet as a whole. This brings me to a forthcoming e-wallet project that popped up in our radars recently.
SGPAY
SGPay is a wallet service based in Singapore that aims to tackle many of the aforementioned issues. The platform hasn’t been launched yet and will only become live in June 2018, but if it delivers what it promises, it might just be able to fix the prevalent digital wallet issue at present.
It provides 24/7 real-time portfolio tracking on mobile, and combines the worlds of fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies into one place. On top of that, it will be integrating a host of services onto its platform, such as an online mall, rental services, movie booking services, insurance services and much more. It operates as a cold wallet. As such, practicality is assured for users and investors alike. The company behind the platform promises to work with various local banks and merchants to ensure that liquidity is less of an issue.
A platform with such great potential deserves support. Contribute to SGPay’s ICO taking place from 1–14th February (pre-sales) and 1st-31st March (main sales) through its website. Each token costs $0.40 USD during pre-sales, then $0.50 USD subsequently, and it has a relatively small hard cap of $4.8 million USD.
