The Future of Crypto Payments
We talk with Ben Way of Digits.io about the future of Crypto Payments and his love for extreme sports/fitness.
We see big promise of blockchain and crypto technology and solutions and are excited to sit down with Ben Way, CEO of Digits.io.
Ben is acclaimed serial entrepreneur in technology with decades-long experience, and has been innovating in crypto since back in 2011. His company Digits. io is pioneering the way for people to use any debit or credit card as a crypto card! He also is quite into extreme activities and sports and has some wellness and detox tips for us as well.
Digits.io is ushering the future of crypto payments by making paying with crypto easy and secure. When the consumer pays with a credit or debit card registered with Digits, payment may be made with cryptocurrency instead of fiat currency. Merchants can enable cryptocurrency via Digits without any additional merchant account or agreement. They do not need to change any process in order to accept cryptocurrencies and the settlement times, processes, and fees, are exactly the same as they experience today. Digits’ Hedge Lending Network™ is a real-time marketplace optimized by artificial intelligence to choose the best outcome for both consumer and lender in real time. Find out more and signup at http://Digits.io
ATHLEISURE MAG: Ben, thanks for taking some time with us. Why is Digits.io well-suited to jumpstart crypto payments? How and why will it be part of adoption at early and mass scale?
BEN WAY: For merchants, they don’t have additional agreements they have to sign; worry about the price of crypto, when they are going to get it - the key is when they are going to get it - the key is when users swipe that crypto card, the merchants get exactly what they are expecting, exactly when they are expecting it. And from the users’ point of view, it is incredibly simple. They just have to swipe their card like they would be accustomed to, and their payment goes through. The registration process to connect you into crypto is really very easy. You just type in your 15/16 digit credit card number already on the credit card in your pocket and we then connect your Coinbase account and when you do a transaction, that money is taken out our your crypto account.
AM: Sounds incredible, tell us more about the vision behind it.
BW: There’s two very fundamental parts to Digits. One is becoming the next generation payment processor for crypto, and the other thing that is very unique to us because our team is coming from Visa, PayPal and Apple Pay, we really see ourselves as from a standpoint that there is already a very established payment ecosystem - and we believe we are the bridge between the new and the old world, which is where we want to be, and as far as part of being the first part of that world. And part of being the first part of that process, is that we had to come up with solutions to the two major problems in crypto payments, which is volatility and network transmission time, and that’s what we did with something we developed called the Hedge Lending Network™ (HLN). This is a new instrument we designed which is why will be able to pay the merchants what they are expecting, when they are expecting it.
AM: Hedge Lending Network™ does sound cool. What’s the story with that?
BW: It’s actually quite complicated, but from the users’ perspective it is really quite simple. Basically, every single transaction is turned to a smart contact backed loan, and even though it is a loan, from the users’ point of view, the costs of the loan are included in the transaction fee, but because it is a loan, it means we can do two things that are pretty cool for the consum-