GRAFT: The Decentralised Payment Processing Network

1.0 INTRODUCTION

It’s an inherent trait in man to always want to get better. The same applies to businesses. Once innovation stops, businesses will die a natural death.

As an entrepreneur with an interest in online marketplaces, I always look for solutions that enable customers to be retained, and new customers gained. In my opinion, this is applicable to every business.

2.0 THE PROBLEM FACED BY ENTERPRISES
Payment solutions are a big talking points, and getting it right is key, for the success of any business. When customers have multiple options to effect an exchange for goods and services rendered, it increases the chances of making a sale.

With the advent of the cryptocurrency revolution, many businesses wish to tap into the huge market and opportunity created, but transaction times and fees for most cryptocurrencies are just not feasible. For instance, transaction times with bitcoin can take hours, and on the other hand, Ethereum fees are not stable, and are very high at times. If a customer wants to effect a payment for say some sweets, at a confectionery, this will not be feasible, seeing the cost of transaction could be higher than the total cost of purchase.

GRAFT (Global Real-Time Authorizations and Funds Transfers) wants to ensure that businesses are not only able to take advantage of the possibilities created by the cryptocurrency movement, but they are able to offer better services/options to their clients/customers, and cut down on the cost they incur with regards to transaction fees they pay as a business. This will also lead to an increase in revenue, which is a primary concern for any business.

3.0 GRAFT: A POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM
GRAFT is a decentralised payment solution that any buyer or seller can use to effect payment at a fraction of the cost they will have incurred by using traditional payment solutions. It’s secure, open and reliable. These are features that come, by being based on the blockchain.

Currently, existing cryptographic payment systems have some limitations, which tend to deter interested parties from taking advantage of them. These are:

• Lacking support offline
• Not being secure enough
• Volatility
• Scalability issues
• Lack of privacy, seeing the blockchain is open
• Lack of a fully functional trust mechanism
• Lack of customer support
• Issues related to processing micro payments
• Poor user interfaces
• Long confirmation times
• Lack of essential transaction types.

The list could go on and on. Traditional solutions have most of these, if not all in place. And seeing they have had quite a long time to evolve, they are better placed and have that experience advantage.

BEFORE THE ADVENT OF GRAFT
GRAFT gets one better over the competition, by making use of cutting edge technology and implementing great features.

4.0 FEATURES OF GRAFT AND THE GRAFT ADVANTAGE.

4.1 REAL TIME AUTHORISATION
This is probably the primary reason we have not seen cryptocurrencies massively adopted by traditional businesses. This is currently being worked on by GRAFT, and will ensure that payments are effected almost instantly, as it is with traditional payment solutions. This will not incur any extra charges.

GRAFT makes use of supernodes to process transactions. They are active 24/7 and transaction fees are paid by the enterprise to the partnering third party. DAPI are also made use of, are they are hosted on multiple supernodes. Any node can be made use of at anytime.

Thus, enterprises can receive payments in currencies of choice, and buyers can use whatever option they fancy to effect payments and it will also ensure that a host of off-chain businesses will be happy to have this integrated, leading to cryptocurrencies being more widely adopted and leading to a great future for the cryptocurrency industry and payment processing industry.

RTA’s also ensure that businesses still get the benefits they were getting from traditional payment solutions, while having additional benefits, like huge savings, new and happy customers, more exposure for their businesses and more importantly additional revenue. It feels like nothing changed, but Santa came early.

BEFORE GRAFT

4.2 GRAFT TRANSACTION FEES
Looking at most crypto based payment solutions today, both the customers and the business owner are billed. GRAFT ensures that only the business bears the cost of the transaction, and also ensures that these fees aren’t too high, so that they do not affect the service rendered or the total cost of the goods sold.
GRAFT also ensures that transaction fees are minimised, by trying to aggregate purchases, and ensuring that fees reduce drastically, with an increase in volume. With graft, it is possible to have transaction fees of 0.0017% but no higher than 0.75%.

RTA based transactions are fixed at 0.5%, while SLA/Services are between 0.25% and 0.75%.
Users are also able to transfer funds (GRFT) for free, between wallets (limited).

This is a fraction of what traditional payment solutions currently offer.

4.3 GRAFT TERMINAL INTEGRATION
Sometimes, introducing whole new products can be overwhelming for businesses. Having software that can be integrated with existing merchant devices ensures that companies will have little problems getting familiar with the service, seeing they have already been making use of them. It will also ensure that they do not have one more device to worry about and they are also ready to go live immediately.
Deploying new devices, also increases the cost incurred by businesses, which is mostly hidden in the tiny print.

GRAFT has been able to take advantage of current solutions, such as Verifone and Ingenico payment terminals, to offer businesses a route to accept payment in multiple forms.
Integration of GRAFT is seamless. All businesses need to do is to install a free application that will give them an access point to accept cryptocurrencies.

GRAFT getting integrated with businesses around us will ensure that we can use cryptocurrencies in meeting our daily needs much more easily. The need of converting via exchanges to BTC and then to fiat will be done away with, seeing we can simply use it to make our purchases. Also, GRAFT’s solution is a all-in-one type, so it offers ease, and will be the only access one will need, to effect or receive payments. Also for businesses, they will be able to receive payments in any form they want, so if the aim was to stack up say, Ethereum, the stress will be done away with. This will ensure that the way we interact with crypto goes to a whole new and much improved level.

WITH GRAFT ON THE SCENE
Customers will also be able to make purchases, and receive confirmation almost instantly, will be able to spend cryptocurrencies directly, and will not incur any fees for purchases. They will also now be able to effect micro payments, seeing fees are more feasible for businesses, and they can gain loyalty bonuses while at it!
Businesses will have more revenue, gain more customers, and will be able to process transactions at lower fees in secure environments. They will also have multiple means of collecting payments, be open to receive payments in many forms, and will have a new level of ease in dealing with these new set of customers. It will ensure that that customer-business relationship thrives. The impact and possibilities are endless.

• Verifone terminal integration
  

Ingenicio terminal integration

4.4 GRAFT MOBILE POS APP
GRAFT has created mobile payment solutions for iOS and android, to make transactions easier and more convenient. Link to the application can be seen below.

GRAFT Mobile POS

4.5 GRAFT MOBILE WALLET
GRAFT has created mobile payment solutions for iOS and android as well, and they can be downloaded immediately.
GRAFT Multi-currency Mobile Wallet for iOS

GRAFT Multi-currency Mobile Wallet for Android

4.6 GRAFT CRYPTOFIND
This is an App developed by GRAFT that enables users to locate businesses that accept cryptocurrencies. Businesses on the other hand can list their businesses/what they do, to be found by potential customers. They can also state whether they accept bitcoin, or all cryptocurrencies with GRAFT. Users stand to get rewarded, by improving the community.
CryptoFind iOS

CryptoFind Android

4.7 THE GRAFT ADVANTAGE

• GRAFT enables businesses to have their own merchant tokens built in, and customers can also be rewarded for their loyalty via loyalty programs that ensure users don’t pile up too many tokens to affect the system negatively.
• GRAFT offers currency conversions (fast cross-chain swaps).
• Transactions times are as low as 3 seconds
• It’s not limited and it’s borderless.
• The solution is built upon the progress made by its predecessors, so it is fully compatible with credit/debit cards.
• It doesn’t have a single point of control
• It’s offers the security of the blockchain, but still affords users some level of privacy.
  *Payouts can be received in local currency.
• Instant payment notifications (online/offline)
• No fees for buyers and very low fees for sellers.

COMPARISON

5.0 USE CASES/APPLICATIONS
Businesses that will be able to benefit from the solutions created by GRAFT are innumerable. As long as a business needs to effect payments, it will be of use to them.
Think of a scenario where you wish you could use that little BTC you had left in your wallet to pay for your cable TV subscription, or you are stranded overseas and your credit card has been declined, or your wallet stolen, and you are able to use ETH to effect payment for your hotel bills. Online gaming websites, charity organisations, supermarkets, female accessories, and even gambling websites can benefit from this solution, to reach new customers and increase revenue.

6.0 THE WAY FORWARD
With this solution created by GRAFT, the big winners will be the cryptocurrency industry and payment processing industry, because mass adoption will lead to more revenue and growth for both sectors. Mass adoption will lead to the demand of more cryptocurrencies, and the greater the demand, the greater the value of these cryptocurrencies.
Other payment processors will have to improve on their services, leading to an even stronger industry.

Before going through the WhitePaper, I had some questions on my mind, such as how they were going to deal with users privacy, transaction times and cost, and these doubts have been cleared.

However, cryptocurrencies like STEEM, where payments are instant and there are no fees, I guess they have to look into what value they can offer. How will GRAFT be beneficial to users in those cases? Perhaps, the advantage of not having to deal with multiple cryptocurrencies at the same time?

Also keep in mind that solutions are being worked on, to improve transaction times. How will GRAFT adapt their value proposition to still be the first choice for users, when this happens? Perhaps, a focus on transaction costs, added security and adding a level of privacy? It will be interesting to see how they adapt, when that time comes.

But for the present, I can categorically state that without a doubt, any business that needs to get ahead of the crowd, increase revenues and cater to a new wave of millennial customers can only achieve that with the aid of GRAFT.

TEAM

PARTNERS

ROADMAP

VIDEOS

Introduction

MORE INFORMATION & RESOURCES:
GRAFT WEBSITE
GRAFT WhitePaper
GRAFT's Twitter
GRAFT's BitCoinTalk
GRAFT on Facebook
GRAFT on Reddit
GRAFT on YouTube
GRAFT on Medium

Entry to @originalworks writing contest that can be seen here

twitter:https://twitter.com/deIdialu/status/1019142391884865537
All images used with the permission of GRAFT
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