Blue Star Capital plc Update on SatoshiPay (2487W)
November 13 2017 - 2:00AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMBLU
RNS Number : 2487W
Blue Star Capital plc
13 November 2017
Blue Star Capital plc
("Blue Star" or the "Company")
Update on SatoshiPay
Blue Star Capital plc (AIM: BLU), the investing company with a
focus on technology and its applications within media and gaming,
is pleased to announce that its investee company, SatoshiPay Ltd
("SatoshiPay"), a UK incorporated company in which Blue Star owns
approximately 31 per cent of the equity has agreed to partner with
the Stellar Development Foundation ("SDF") as the underlying
cryptocurrency ledger for SatoshiPay's settlement system.
Since its 2015 initial product launch SatoshiPay has relied on
the Bitcoin network to settle nanopayments. Initially Bitcoin
transaction fees were negligible, however, as previously announced,
due to Bitcoin's rising popularity in 2017, combined with stalling
scalability improvements, it became clear that Bitcoin's original
vision of a peer to peer electronic cash system was no longer
viable for everyday transactions. To sustain and enhance
SatoshiPay's business model based on frequent low-value payments,
SatoshiPay has been exploring alternatives to replace Bitcoin with
a more suitable distributed ledger technology.
During the process of designing the software architecture for a
switch to a new ledger technology, it became evident that
hardwiring a new cryptocurrency to SatoshiPay's updated system was
potentially inefficient and instead they started abstracting all
cryptocurrency ledger operations - like wallet creation - into a
layer between SatoshiPay's business logic and the underlying
ledger. Using this layered approach, the switch from one default
ledger to another would become relatively easy and SatoshiPay would
no longer be locked into a specific ledger or blockchain. This
multiple ledger approach should ultimately allow SatoshiPay to use
different ledgers depending on the requirements of corporate
clients or industry verticals of its nanopayment settlement
platform.
Having carried out extensive testing on alternative ledgers
SatoshiPay has concluded that Stellar is the preferred default
ledger. Stellar was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in San
Francisco. Stellar received initial funding through credit card
payment processor Stripe and IBM has recently announced that its
using Stellar in their blockchain banking platform. Stellar's
cryptocurrency Lumen has a current market capitalisation of
approximately EUR423 million.
SatoshiPay's decision to chose Stellar was based on its
extremely low fees (currently 0.00003 cents per operation) and fast
settlement (approximately 5 seconds to confirmation) allowing
SatoshiPay to settle all transactions in real-time and directly on
the distributed ledger. This should mean that in the future,
publishers using the SatoshiPay network will receive funds within
seconds after a consumer pays for content.
Starting in 2018, all of SatoshiPay's transactions are expected
to be via the Stellar network. As part of its marketing program,
SDF has pledged to credit the first 100,000 users creating a wallet
through SatoshiPay with 500 Lumens each which have a current value
of approximately 13 euros.
Tony Fabrizi, CEO of Blue Star said: "SatoshiPay's business
model continues to evolve and the upcoming launch of the new ledger
technology through Stellar is further evidence of the company's
ability to evolve in a fast changing environment and to attract
strong partners. The ability to switch between different ledgers
depending upon the requirements should provide significant benefits
and allow SatoshiPay the widest possible flexibility to meet
customer requirements".
SatoshiPay CEO Meinhard Benn said: "We are thrilled to be
working with Stellar's technology to deliver our updated product to
market in what we believe is the fastest way possible. We expect
the generous 50 million Lumen which Stellar is giving to be a
significant help in growing our user and client base."
Jed McCaleb, cofounder of Stellar, said "We're excited that
SatoshiPay has selected Stellar as its primary ledger technology
and look forward to inviting SatoshiPay users to the Stellar
community. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are
facilitating open innovation and revolutionizing the payments
space, and we're thrilled to be working with SatoshiPay to help
lead the way by making micropayments much faster and less costly
than ever before."
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014 ("MAR").
For further information, please contact:
Blue Star Capital
plc
Tony Fabrizi +44 (0) 777 178 2434
Cairn Financial Advisers
LLP +44 (0) 20 7213 0880
(Nominated Adviser)
Emma Earl/Jo Turner
Smaller Company Capital
Limited +44 (0) 203 651 2911
(Broker)
Rupert Williams/Jeremy
Woodgate
About Blue Star Capital plc
Blue Star is an investing company with a focus on new
technologies. Blue Star'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.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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