Plutus raises $1 million as competition heats up for Bitcoin NFC payments

There are still only a few merchants in the world that accept Bitcoin payments, and most of them are through third-party service providers such as Bitpay and Coinbase (the merchants actually receive legal currency). Instead of persuading merchants to use third-party services, it is better to let users use payment applications to indirectly realize Bitcoin payments. As a result, startups such as Plutus have emerged, whose goal is to make Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies usable in any store.

Bitcoin payment company Plutus has announced that its crowdfunding campaign has been successfully completed, raising more than $1 million in nine days. With the money, the startup plans to complete its Bitcoin NFC payment app.

Crowdfunding results exceeded expectations, NFC application is coming soon

Contactless (NFC) payment company Plutus wants to make Bitcoin payments easier. The point-of-sale (POS) platform allows customers to make payments similar to how they use Apple Pay. However, the difference is that users can use Bitcoin and Ethereum to make transactions, and these transactions are settled through Ethereum smart contracts.

Plutus announced: "Plutus has raised over $1 million in 9 days, which has exceeded our expectations and will allow us to complete our platform and make Plutus Tap & Pay a reality. Our vision is to make Plutus the most practical way to pay with Bitcoin and Ethereum. Users can simply place their phone on the NFC reader of any merchant to complete the payment. It really can't be simpler, you don't have to wait for merchants and businesses to accept Bitcoin, you can use Plutus Tap & Pay to do it!"

It is worth mentioning that in order to promote consumer purchases, the company has also established a reward system, which provides a native token called "Plutons", which is similar to other cryptocurrencies. The difference is that there is no transaction fee for Plutons.

In addition, Plutus will use the P2P trading network PlutusDEX to provide liquidity for tokens. The platform is an autonomous gateway application distributed on the Ethereum blockchain.

Plutus has been developing the platform’s application architecture since 2014, and now the number of people using NFC technology has almost doubled (it is estimated that the number of people using NFC technology will reach 1 billion in 2016).

“Plutus is the first real-world application built for Bitcoin users,” the company explained. “Because users can pay with Bitcoin at any store, we believe Plutus will become the most practical digital currency app with the potential to drive mass adoption of Bitcoin.”

Plutus also added that “for every Bitcoin conversion transaction you make on the app, you will receive a reward in Pluton tokens, starting at 3%, which will gradually decrease as the network develops, with a minimum of 0.01%.”

The UK startup said it was a difficult challenge to offer a frictionless financial application that couldn’t hold a user’s funds but still functioned as a contactless payment mechanism.

Competition in the NFC Payment Market

In fact, Plutus is not the only company in the market that focuses on contactless payment with cryptocurrency. For example, another Android browser app called BitHappy also provides similar Bitcoin payment services. In addition, another Android platform called Shake also provides very similar functions to Plutus.

The competition in the Bitcoin NFC payment market has begun. Let’s wait and see how far Plutus can go.