Blue Star Capital plc (LON:BLU) CEO Tony Fabrizi & SatoshiPay founder Meinhard Benn talk to DirectorsTalk about dropping Bitcoin (CURRENCY:BTC) as the underlying cryptocurrency ledger in favour of Stellar Development Foundation. Meinhard explains in simple terms what this achieves for SatoshiPay, the relationship with IOTA and when we can expect to see some larger customers deploying the system, while Tony explains what this means for 31% owner Blue Star Capital.
SatoshiPay previously has relied on the Bitcoin (BTC) network to settle nanopayments and while transaction fees were negligible, with Bitcoin’s rising popularity in this year, stalled scalability improvements (through SegWit2x which would have raised the block size to two megabytes, making faster transactions) it became clear that Bitcoin’s original vision of a peer to peer electronic cash system was no longer viable for everyday transactions. With this in mind SatoshiPay’s business model which is based on frequent low-value payments, the company explored alternatives to Bitcoin that have a more suitable distributed ledger technology.
Blue Star Capital is an investing company with a focus on new technologies. It’s investments include a 31% holding in SatoshiPay, a nanopayment software and blockchain company; a holding in Disruptive Tech Limited, an investing company with five investments including a 38% holding in VNU Group LLC (“VNU”) a speciality online direct retailer of premium goods paid for through an instant credit facility and a holding in Nektan PLC; and a 1% investment in Sthaler, an early stage identity and payments technology business which enables a consumer to identify themselves and pay using just their finger at retail points of sale.