Tokes Platform Newsletter, November 2018 — Product Demos, Development Updates, and Conferences
Greetings Tokes Platform Enthusiasts,
Welcome back to the November edition of the newsletter, and a Happy Thanksgiving to our friends in the States! This has been an incredibly busy month for the Tokes team, both on development fronts and with conference and business efforts. We have set some stringent milestones for ourselves by the end of the year which we are prepared to meet, particularly on the Merchant Gateway, discussed in more detail below!
Merchant Gateway Updates
The Tokes Merchant Gateway is seeing a number of new developments and integrations in the closing months of the year. One of the most exciting is the integration of BTCPay Server, currently enabling both Bitcoin and Litecoin payment functionality, and allowing for more tokens/currencies to be easily integrated in the future. While clearly there is incentive for us to develop software solutions natively integrating our token, there is a clear benefit to building functional merchant ready software for the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole — particularly when there is a relative dearth of brick and mortar ready point of sale software available today. Lest we forget, wallets are not enough to prompt enterprise adoption of cryptocurrency, there must be full-featured, easy to use software that encompasses current business processes around tokenized transactions. With our present features and ongoing developments, the Gateway meets the software needs for standard consumer business practices!
Ecommmerce integrations are also right around the corner, allowing merchants utilizing the Gateway to turn on a plug and play web store, or use plugins to their existing website for easy tokenized checkouts. Users may expect to see these integrations rolling out the first quarter of 2019.
Additionally, integration with Metrc is nearing completion, Nevada’s reporting system for all cannabis business transactions. This will make the Merchant Gateway fully compliant with Nevada’s state reporting requirements, and any other state utilizing Metrc for cannabis business data.
World Crypto Con & MJBizCon
The Tokes team demonstrated our products at World Crypto Con October 31 and November 1, sharing a booth with our partner Vault Logic. Here, booth visitors were able to experience the full consumer workflow of a Tokes payment, from purchase of the token using the Vault Logic Kiosk and Tokes Mobile Wallet, to check-out on the Merchant Gateway Software. We gave innumerable demos during our days on the floor at the conference, and made a great deal of introductions to both new potential Tokes users and die hard followers alike.
Below you will find a YouTube video demonstrating the full walkthrough conference goers experienced at the booth (with who we shared some Tokes swag).
MJBizCon came shortly after World Crypto Con, and the Tokes team was there assessing the current state of blockchain based projects and point of sale offerings within the cannabis space. Of particular note at the event, our partners TheraCann and Applied DNA Sciences had a presence demonstrating their ETCH Biotrace technology. ETCH is a verification technology that employs molecular tagging methods to ensure the integrity and provenance of ingredients and components in cannabis supply chains. It is this ETCH data that we are using as one of the first use cases for our EPCIS chain. Coupling the ETCH technology with a distributed blockchain ledger via EPCIS ensures the provenance of the plant to a degree that cannot be achieved with QR codes on product containers alone. ETCH tags the plant with an inert, synthetic DNA marker that can be tested for using a mobile device in a matter of minutes. Fundamentally this can completely eliminate gray market slippage of product in or out of geographically bounded supply chains when regular auditing protocols are adhered to. The plant gets an unforgeable marker with ETCH, preventing grey market cannabis getting in, and the data structure maintains a degree of trustless certainty that prevents data manipulation via the decentralized ledger. We are very excited to help bring this product to market with our partners at TheraCann. See a short video of the ETCH tagging system below:
Cannabis Economic Forum Talks
The week of MJBizCon, Michael Wagner gave an informative presentation at CEF Talks here in Las Vegas Nevada. The Cannabis Economic Forum is an organization formed for the purpose of giving voice to the concerns associated with the emerging cannabis market. Their efforts give a formal platform for cannabis businesses, activists, lawmakers, and patients to discuss emerging issues and solutions amid the ever-changing business of cannabis. Michael’s talk primarily focused on the advantages of using blockchain based payments and data structures within the regulated cannabis space. See an excerpt of his presentation below.
That wraps up this month’s newsletter. Keep an eye out this month for development releases, and have a happy holiday season!
Here’s to something new. Here’s to the revolution.
