Payments start-up Flexa has unveiled a mobile app and payment network, which will enable shoppers to pay through crypto at various physical stores and online for major retailers.
With the new SPEDN app, one can make mobile payments at select merchants in Ether, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and the Gemini dollar stablecoin.
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All users need to do for making the payments is add cryptocurrencies to the SPEDN wallet and scan the app’s barcode at the register.
Following this process, Flexa converts the cryptocurrency to US dollars for payments to retailers.
For using the Gemini dollar, Flexa collaborated with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini Trust Company.
Gemini will now serve as the custodian for assets of Flexa clients.
Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss said: “This technology shifts cryptocurrency from investment and speculation toward real usability.”
SPEDN is said to be an intermediary between merchants and the blockchain.
On the part of retailers, SPEDN does not call for point-of-sale enhancements.
Instead, it integrates existing merchant points-of-sale with blockchain.
This is said to lower fraud and simplify settlement.
Flexa co-founder and CEO Tyler Spalding said: “This is the first real instance of decentralised global retail payments, with the power to make commerce more efficient and accessible for billions of citizens globally.
“The legacy payment systems are complicated and costly.
“This solution provides a way for cryptocurrencies to solve these problems and allow merchants to conduct inexpensive and fraud-resistant transactions.”
