Hong Kong – Friday, 18 May 2018: nChain and Centbee announced a partnership today which will ensure the speedy development of a merchant PoS software development kit (SDK) for the worldwide market. This SDK is an open-source set of tools, processes and interfaces that software developers and system integrators can use to enable retailers to easily and quickly accept Bitcoin cash at the till-point. The announcement was made at the 1st ever CoinGeek conference, focused on merchant adoption of Bitcoin Cash and growth of a new bCommerce (Bitcoin commerce) world.
Angus Brown, Centbee co-CEO explains, “Merchant acceptance of Bitcoin has been very limited to date. We announced earlier this year that we would roll out mechanisms for merchants to accept Bitcoin cash payments without exposure to price volatility and without installing new terminal hardware. This SDK is that global payment system.”
The project is funded by nChain to promote its vision of making it easy for everyone to use Bitcoin Cash for payments. Bitcoin Cash fulfils the original vision for Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system specifically built for worldwide transactions.
nChain Group CEO Jimmy Nguyen remarks: “As Centbee has focused on user-friendly Bitcoin wallets and merchant payment solutions we have partnered with them to ensure retailers can accept Bitcoin Cash at in-store points of sale for goods and services. This SDK will make it easier for merchants, through their PoS systems, to join the world of bCommerce. Centbee smartly embraces Bitcoin Cash because of its bigger blocks, low fees and fast transaction network represent the true vision of Bitcoin.”
Dominique Collet, Head of Alphacode, a club for fintech entrepreneurs powered by Rand Merchant Investment Holdings comments, “We are really excited about what Centbee is doing – helping crypto go mainstream and providing real-world transactional capability. The Centbee origin story is also a great one as Lorien and Angus met at Alphacode. This is a great example of how putting smart people in a room together can unlock creative new ideas and hopefully spawn large, successful businesses. This was the premise of establishing Alphacode as a fintech community – to stimulate the development of the next generation of financial services entrepreneurs.”
Last year, Centbee successfully piloted the acceptance of Bitcoin payments at retail points of sale.
In January 2018, nChain’s investment arm, nChain Reaction, made an equity investment in Centbee.
Based in South Africa, Centbee was founded in 2016 by co-CEOs, Lorien Gamaroff and Angus Brown. Gamaroff is a leading expert in blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies. He has consulted and advised regulators and large companies internationally and is highly regarded globally as an educator and presenter. Brown has 20 years’ experience in payments and banking including the role of co-founder and CEO of eBucks.com, a world-first bank-backed digital currency created in 2000.
Centbee is a gold member of AlphaCode, the fintech investment arm of Rand Merchant Investment Holdings.