In 2017 the price of Bitcoin increased from just under $1,000 to almost $20,000, only to then drop by 30 per cent.

Currently Bitcoin is trading at around $6,400, only a fraction of its peak value. So how did it come to this?

Firstly there is trust. The volume of ICO scams in 2017, created a lot of damage to public trust in crypto. Secondly, the market is highly fragmented.

There are more than 1,500 coins out there vying for a piece of the pie. Add the legal side as countries and regulatory bodies struggle to contain the explosive spread of cryptocurrencies in their jurisdictions.

Probably the most important reason, however, has to be the utilisation of cryptocurrencies for real-world applications, such as purchase of goods - that is, mass adoption. Mass adoption is not following the growth of trade and investment of 2017. One look at how you enter the world of digital currencies and you can understand why adoption lags behind.

Wallets and private keys are complicated, really only for the initiated. A plethora of wallets and digital currency trading services await those wanting to use crypto currencies. Which one can you trust? Which one is safe?

After selecting a wallet, a user still has to create accounts with exchanges in order to buy cryptocurrency.

Our industry surely does not make things easy for mass adoption. And we have not even touched upon volatility yet. Not an ideal situation for a breakthrough in public adoption. The question everyone is asking themselves now is how to lower these barriers to entry for normal people?

Salamantex addresses those problems with its easy-to-use crypto payment ecosystem. The Salamantex SX1801 POS terminal for merchants includes a payment app – which also works as a standalone – and a crypto network called Charry which in the near future is destined to run on the terminals installed. With the combination of Charry and SX1801, we plan to offer a broad range of sophisticated payment options, such as subscriptions or recurring payments, while removing the barriers to utilising cryptocurrencies. 

Merchants installing the SX1801 would not require any wallet set-up and removes the volatility risk of doing trades in cryptocurrencies. Instead, payments made in cryptocurrencies via the SX1801 are collected by Salamantex, converted into fiat which the merchant receives at fixed intervals – daily, weekly or monthly.

Accompanying each fiat payout is a full balance report which merchants can use for their bookkeeping. The SX1801 is available for installation now, and based on market feedback we plan to install 100,000 terminals in 2019 in countries such as Romania, Ukraine, Austria, Italy and Spain.

In Asia, Salamantex is pushing its first units into Malaysia and Hong Kong. For us Malta is the ideal place from which to lead this expansion. Crypto companies find ideal support and conditions here.

By attending the Malta Blockchain Summit, we hope to reach a greater audience and push future breakthroughs in this industry space.

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