nanoPay Acquires Bitcoin Alternative MintChip

The concept of digital currency holds a lot o promise, and many people are keeping a close eye on what is happening in the Bitcoin world. But that is not keeping developers and companies from looking at other digital currencies, such as MintChip. Now that the Royal Canadian Mint’s own digital currency has been acquired by nanoPay, interesting things are bound to happen.

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MintChip And nanoPay Is An Interesting Combination

The Royal Canadian Mint has taken a liking to the idea presented by Bitcoin and other digital currencies and decided to create their own project not too long ago. MintChip, as this new currency is called, is backed by the Canadian Dollar, rather than using the free market model which gives Bitcoin its value.

Now that nanoPay has acquired MintChip – after over a year of negotiations and back-and-forth communication – this different spin on digital currencies can be commercialized. At the time of publication, no official amount regarding this acquisition was made publicly available.

It has to be said that MintChip had gotten on the radar of a few interested parties, and nanoPay secured the deal during their period of exclusivity for negotiation. The goal is to bring the MintChip principle to mainstream consumers all across Canada, allowing people to get used to the concept of digital currency while preserving a fiat-backed instrument.

So far, nanoPay has not indicated how they will be rolling out the concept officially, although chances are it could become a mobile project in the not-so-distant future. After all, the company has already developed a mobile payment solution similar to Apple Pay, but not limited to the Apple ecosystem.

However, MintChip is something entirely different from mobile payment solutions in the traditional sense. The former is a digital currency, whereas mobile payment solutions are stand-alone apps used to pay for goods and services. However, MintChip is subject to lower transactions fees – at a fixed rate – to ensure this solution will always be the easiest and cheapest way to pay for anything.

Going Beyond Canadian Borders

nanoPay made its intentions known regarding expanding their number of partnership in local and foreign markets over the next few months. The plan is to make MintChip as widely accepted as possible, and there are plans on the table to expand into mainland Europe and other countries in the future.

The project leverages interesting technology that has not been properly tested on a wide scale just yet. Depending on the adoption and usage rate of MintChip, nanoPay is looking to established themselves as a major player in the alternative payments industry over the next few years.

Source: Forbes

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