Today, in celebration of the 10th year anniversary of cryptocurrency, Bizkey is launching ‘Token Day’ in Singapore. Held from October 31st to November 18th, Token Day is a campaign to familiarize the public with cryptocurrency in a retail setting. During this period, 30 retailers clustered around Chinatown in Singapore will accept various cryptocurrencies as payment. The public can use Bizkey’s intelligent blockchain point-of-sale (POS) device to pay with various cryptocurrencies including Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Aelf coin (ELF) and Zilliqa coin (ZIL) at participating retailers. Among the retailers are SK Jewellery, Koryo Mart, and Hotel 1887. See Annex 1 for full list of retailers.
Singapore has been somewhat of a cryptocurrency capital ever since the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued guidelines in November 2017 differentiating between security tokens, a tokenized form of equity, and utility tokens, a tokenized coupon representing prepaid access to a product or service. According to PwC, there were 56 Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) which closed in Singapore in the first 5 months of 2018 raising over 1 billion USD, comparing well to 35 ICOs raising 641 million USD during the entire 2017. Despite the thriving blockchain startup ecosystem, Singapore has not yet seen widespread cryptocurrency payment adoption among local merchants.
However, cryptocurrency has the potential to revolutionize the retail sector by tackling problems such as payment fraud, money transfer delays, logistics, and accounting. With Token Day, Bizkey aims to bring retail merchants into the digital era by demonstrating the ease, convenience, and security of accepting cryptocurrency. Bringing cryptocurrencies to the masses is in line with Singapore’s Smart Nation efforts and bid to become a fintech hub.
“Although cryptocurrency was first invented 10 years ago, very few people in the world have the chance to actually use it to buy products and services. We want to change this through Token Day, which will be the first time that retailers in Singapore will accept cryptocurrency as payment, on such a large scale. In Singapore, we estimate there are about 10,000 to 15,000 people who own cryptocurrency, who are likely to be tech-savvy males in their mid-20s to early 40s. We hope these individuals and the wider public will be keen to try out the novelty of being amongst the pioneering cryptocurrency spenders in Singapore,” said Ken Huang, Co-founder and CEO of Bizkey.
One of the notable retailers participating in the Token Day is Hotel 1887, a popular tourist hotel located in heart of Chinatown district. Jonathan S., the Head of Operations in Hotel 1887, commented: “We want to expand our payment options and cater to the needs of different customers, including cryptocurrency holders. Tourists can also enjoy the benefit of cryptocurrency payment as it allows for hassle-free, cross-border payments with low transaction fees.”
