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April 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Visiting the huge shopping centre in the outskirts of Ljubljana in early February (several weeks before the coronavirus outbreak in Slovenia),
it was easy to pay with the Elly mobile app at self-service checkouts. At the Tus supermarket’s self-service checkouts, for example, the option to pay with GoCrypto pops up alongside cash and card.
“In Slovenia, one could spend an entire day using a crypto wallet instead of a ‘normal’ one. Cryptocurrencies were envisioned as the electronic cash of the future, and that future is pretty much here,” according to the Eligma spokesperson.
And it’s not just in Ljubljana. The app shows all the places that accept crypto in the area, and dozens of shops and cafes popped up within a kilometre of my location when I visited Slovenia’s fifth-largest city Koper. Even in the small resort town of Bled, with a population of just over 8,000, there were several places to make crypto payments.
In total, as of the beginning of March 2020, over 1,000 locations offered payment with GoCyypto. The company listed stores and service providers including a ‘crypto golf course’, a ‘crypto driving school’, spas, grocery shops, theatres and car rentals.
Fundraising for international expansion
GoCrypto’s launch was crowdfunded with a public crowdsale in May 2018 that raised $10mn, despite what the company said was the unfavourable market situation. Just over a year later, in September 2019, Eligma announced a €4mn investment by Bitcoin.com together with Roger Ver – the bitcoin-focused investor dubbed “Bitcoin Jesus” – and Swiss investment firm Pangea Blockchain Fund.
In addition to the hundreds of outlets in Slovenia, as of February GoCrypto was present at more than 100 locations in Croatia, and following the 2019 venture funding round also entered Bulgaria,
the Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and the UK.
The company stresses that having retailers and other service providers willing to accept crypto payments is the key to getting crypto into the mainstream as a payment method used on a daily basis. Among the providers outside Slovenia to join the GoCrypto merchant network are Budapest-based craft beer producer BrewDog and the ferry service connecting people across Lake Lugano.
It is also still pressing ahead with an expansion into Latin America despite the pandemic. At the end of February, Eligma announced a partnership with payment gateway Xpay through which its platform is now available at nearly 200 locations in Colombia, Venezuela, and Argentina.
“Our aim is for GoCrypto to become a global infrastructure, championing simple use of cryptocurrencies and bringing together different crypto wallets, consumers and merchants
in one payment solution,” said the company spokesperson. Ultimately, the company believes, crypto will become a payment option as common as credit cards.
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