The bitcoin wallet and payment service has collected more than $1 million in a 9-day long crowdsale. The company is planning to use the money for further development of the platform.

The main task the British startup is going to complete with the help of raised funds is creating a Tap & Pay service.

The company began developing the solution in 2014. First, it came up with the concept of uniting bitcoin with the Near Field Communications technology. In that period of time, the interest for mobile payments grew dramatically: the number of NFC supporting smartphones almost doubled. In 2016, this number is expected to reach the mark of 1 billion.

“The next logical step was clear to us — to combine the best of both worlds and make contactless payments with Bitcoin and Ethereum a reality,” reads the company’s statement.

The company emphasises that first of all the platform is designed for practical everyday use.

“Even though the Bitcoin world is growing, Bitcoin merchant adoption has so far proved to be a challenging endeavour. Merchants are hesitant to accept it, and users are unable to spend it. And because there is no widespread Bitcoin PoS infrastructure in place, merchants often reconsider continued usage.”

The platform’s customer will be able to pay at any store with an NFC-enabled terminal. After that, bitcoins will be exchanged for fiat currency through the DEX (decentralised exchange) system. Thus, the merchant will receive the payment in the currency they accept. And the bitcoin owner will be able to pay with cryptocurrency in a greater number of stores.

The platform was developed on the basis of Ethereum ecosystem. The application uses its own crypto tokens called Plutons. They play the role of a reward for application users, much like air miles or cashback offers provided by traditional credit cards. For every bitcoin transaction, a user will receive a rebate in Plutons from 0.01% to 3%.

Elena Platonova