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Cryptocurrencies provide customers with more choice

Philip Sedgwick and Juan Martin Grisales have two things in common; they’re both business owners and they both see digital currency as the future. Sedgwick is the owner and operator at the Wirtshaus am Bavariapark beer garden in Munich while Grisales is CEO at Living Group, an organization of three companies engaged in international tourism.

Philip Sedgwick and Juan Martin Grisales have two things in common; they’re both business owners and they both see digital currency as the future. Sedgwick is the owner and operator at the Wirtshaus am Bavariapark beer garden in Munich while Grisales is CEO at Living Group, an organization of three companies engaged in international tourism.

Both businessmen serve an international clientèle, and have taken measures to accept all of the top digital currencies as payment, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Steem, Smartcoins and others, even if the current early stage of digital payment evolution.

Confirming their belief in the future of digital currency, Susan Athey, Stanford Economics and Technology professor, labelled the technology as nothing short of revolutionary. The technology will allow, “People or institutions to transfer funds instantly, securely and without a middleman,” Athey states in an article published by the World Economic Forum in 2015.

From programmable money to new forms of e-commerce, Athey wrote, digital currency has the capacity to change the world, providing a faster and cheaper method of transferring money.

Athey also discussed how the technology helps include a previously unbanked proportion of the world’s population, providing access to banking services they previously could not. Even more generally, digital currency has the potential to unleash greater power over e-commerce. The vision is vivid; execution is upon us.

“I’ve always been very much a fan of new ideas, for my kitchens, for cooking techniques, for equipment, and Bitcoin I smile about it, of course, because that is the future, whether people like it or not.”
— – Philip Sedgwick, Wirtshaus am Bavariapark

“Speed is paramount,” said Sedgwick. He recently served Munich’s Bitcoin Club of around 50 members using BitShares Munich BlockPay point-of-sale (POS) system. The free-to-download platform is capable of integrating into an existing merchant’s POS system, or working standalone. BlockPay is a coin-agnostic system which means all top digital currencies, and even user-issued assets, can be accepted.

“[They] all used cell phones to pay with Bitcoin and it went really, really well,” Sedgwick adds. Just two of the members had transactions take more than a minute to complete. “If you have warm food and a beer … [that] can be a nightmare.”

The beer garden operator was steadfast in his belief that a variety of payment methods is of utmost importance in the current, global marketplace. “Munich is a very small city but it has so many international exhibitions like Oktoberfest,” Sedgwick clarified, such events bring with them international customers.

If a Japanese guest arrives at the Wirtshaus am Bavariapark, Sedgwick wants to provide a convenient experience. So serving that customer in the currency or wallet of their choice is a benefit to him and to his customers. He’s found Bitcoin is a appreciated option.

However, Sedgwick said the use of digital currency is, “A very new thing,” that is still growing in popularity. Germany’s finance ministry moved to categorize Bitcoin as private money and recognized it as a unit of account in 2013. According to reporting by CNBC’s Matt Clinch, this means it can be used for tax and trading purposes in the country.

“We are in a technological advancement towards digital money and therefore its use is still very limited to ordinary people.”
— – Juan Martin Grisales, Living Group

Living Group CEO, Juan Martin Grisales, also recently installed the BlockPay POS system, and began accepting digital currencies across all three of the organization’s companies, Living Hotels, Living Trips tour operator, and travel agency Living Trips TMC.

“This is a bet on the near future to change the way we manage the income of our sales and at the same time reduce our financing costs,” Grisales said via email. His push for digital currency acceptance is a hedge on the future, potential massification of digital currencies.

Grisales also stated the digital currency with the most commercial force at this time is Bitcoin. The world’s most successful digital currency is currently in excess of US$11 billion, by market capitalization.

The team behind BitShares Munich is helping these entrepreneurs, and many more like the, to grow digital currency adoption. Christoph Hering, CEO at BitShares Munich, described the biggest challenge for most digital currencies is acceptance in brick-and-mortar businesses. Hering’s vision is to, “Unite the multiple blockchain communities,” and build easy to use tools that are beneficial and open to everyone.

Their solution for serving such a broad range of consumers is to deliver an agnostic payment platform that supports multiple digital currencies, explained Ken Code, chief technical officer at BitShares Munich.

BlockPay has a built in system that automatically shifts one coin or asset into another. The transaction, he said, will typically happen in three seconds or less. The merchant can then receive his funds in his local currency, within seconds, or hold on to the digital currency.

“In comparison to traditional POS services, we are handing over the private keys to our BlockPay users, creating a peer-to-peer payment network that serves the people first.”
— – Christoph Hering, BitShares Munich CEO

To reach their goals, Hering and his team use the Bitshares blockchain. The CEO describes Bitshares as a decentralized asset exchange, where users manage their private keys, and have total control over their wallets and money. The platform already connects thousands of businesses, consumers and users.

Every BlockPay merchant can also create their own digital assets on the Bitshares blockchain, which can represent loyalty points, coupons, rebates, or community-backed digital currencies.


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