Introduction

It is well known that cryptocurrencies have begun to emerge as a form of digital money, which in many cases could supplant the conventional currency as we know it. However, it has been difficult to introduce it as a means of payment in conventional establishments and businesses, generally given by the excessive time in which transactions are made and at the cost of the rates they generate (fees).

In this publication, we will know a platform capable of overcoming these barriers and converting cryptocurrencies into a universal payment system adaptable to physical stores and commercial services. Opening up new opportunities that will change the mindset of the merchants and obviously benefit the new digital wallets' customers.

A new perspective

Normally when you go out to buy in the market, pharmacy or any establishment, pay with the currency of your country or fiat. In my case, due to the economic situation that my country presents, things are too expensive. However, cryptocurrencies or cryptographic token have been a great help to survive in this situation; and I am sure that in other countries the same thing also happens. The cryptocurrencies have begun to change the world economy and our experience is an example (I refer to the Venezuelans).

Thanks to the recent increase in cryptocurrencies and digital wallets (the number of users with digital wallets increased from 5 to 20 million since last year); it is possible to make (mine) or obtain cryptocurrencies (through jobs, bountys or airdrops among others). But the problem arises when you exchange these cryptocurrencies to country's fiat and even more to buy any item of basic need, such as food or medicine. You must find an agent that allows you to change the cryptocurrency to the currency of your country and, often, you must find a third party that changes the cryptocurrency to another cryptocurrency that accepts the previous one. And most of the time, transactions between cryptocurrencies take a long time.

Another problem that I can also observe and that can also be solved by the platform that I am going to explain, is that when one travels to another country, having cryptocurrencies is a way to keep our money "safe". Let's explain what I mean by this. When you are on vacation or going to work in another country, you must often rely on your credit cards (something that Venezuelans cannot do for now) or on the cash you carry with yourself (usually currency from your country). But you could lose your money (due to theft or carelessness) or possibly the credit or debit cards fail. Therefore, it is excellent to have a digital wallet that can be used in any country regardless of foreign country's currency.

It is true that cryptographic payment systems already exist, but unfortunately they have many shortcomings compared to conventional electronic payments and in no way makes them compatible or adaptable to conventional purchases in physical stores. The problem is that most of their failures make them less attractive to merchants, as a means of payment. The most relevant deficiencies include: the confirmation times for transactions are too long, unpredictable transaction rates (fees), low scalability, lack of privacy (transactions are traceable through the blockchain), there is no relationship of trust between the buyer and the seller and not always users can exchange any type of cryptocurrency.

That is why today I come to present this great project called GRAFT. A platform that will allow us to buy from a cup of coffee to food, medicine, any item we want using our cryptocurrencies (whatever it is) in any store or establishment that uses this service. Allowing at the same time, that the merchant receive cryptocurrencies or fiat.

Let's see then all the advantages of this ecosystem called GRAFT

GRAFT

GRAFT is a decentralized payment system. In summary, GRAFT is a platform based on blockchain technology that allows purchases with cryptocurrencies in establishments that operate with the GRAFT system; allowing merchants to continue selling their products accepting all types of cryptocurrencies in exchange or making the conversion to fiat money or fiat. It also allows other payment methods like credit cards and bank transfers; and special transaction types. In the image below you can see how both the customer and the merchant interact with the GRAFT network in a simple way, similar to any conventional commercial operation.

Since it is fundamentally what the GRAFT team wants, to convince the merchants that they can integrate cryptocurrencies as a payment method, without having to change their infrastructure, executing transactions quickly with low transaction fees. And obviously, this would represent a huge advantage for consumers who use digital wallets. Besides, GRAFT allows easily installing its application in point of sales of the establishments and markets.

Benefits

There is no better way to describe a platform than to explain it through its benefits:

Decentralized

It offers a completely decentralized environment, without any central point of authority. Payments, transfers of funds, authorizations in real time are written on the block of GRAFT. This blockchain is formed by SuperNodes that allow implementing the DRAFT blockchain and includes the handling of the calls to the distributed API. They combine PoW and PoS consensus algorithms to keep the blockchain through mining and transaction fees.

In the GRAFT blockchain all transaction will be untraceable (this will be explained later, CryptoNote section), undeletable and encrypted.

Multi-Currency

The GRAFT platform allows payments in any kind of cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, LTC, etc.), credit cards and fiat. In this way, merchants can increase their clientele by allowing all kinds of payments, both cryptographic and conventional.

RTA. Real Time Authorizations.

This is one of the best attributes of GRAFT, since it manages to execute the purchase process in seconds. In this way the merchants will stop doubting the use of cryptocurrencies.

Normally a Bitcoin transaction lasts between 10 to 60 minutes. The GRAFT platform will perform transactions, transfers and payments in seconds without charging the customer any fee; all of them will be paid by the merchant.

This is achieved by GRAFT, dividing the process into two phases, an authorization phase that is executed in real time (executed in seconds) and a settlement phase of the payment that is made when the transaction is written in the blockchain (normally it does not last more than 2 minutes). This last process is carried out through mining process. Authorization is achieved by taking a sample of supernodes from the network (eight randomly selected) that approves the payment in real time, while temporarily blocking the client's account until the settlement is made to avoid double spending. This is done through the CryptoNote protocol creating a temporal key image (Built on Monero).

The GRAFT platform allows, under certain conditions, off-line approvals when the network is not available. It depends on the reputation of the buyer and the supernode.

Low Transaction Fees

Within the GRAFT ecosystem, the client will not pay any transaction fees, since all fees will be paid by the merchant. However, they will not exceed 0.5% for authorizations in real time; and transfer of funds between wallets will not exceed 0.1%. All fees must be paid in GRFT, the native GRAFT platform token. The first rates are to incentivize the mines of the supernodes and the second are originated to provide the identity of the users who make the transfers between wallets. However, this is done through zero-knowledge proof-authentication technology that does not compromise user privacy.

However, there is a fee that will be charged separately to the merchant, the Third-Party Service Broker rate. This is associated with payments made with credit cards or bank transfers, which must be handled by third parties.

Identity Proofing

The GRAFT platform will request certain important customer information, such as age, address, among others, to verify and ensure that the user can make certain purchases that are regulated by governmental institutions or entities (such as pharmaceutical drugs or weapons); in the same way to check that the customer can buy alcoholic beverages or tobacco. Likewise, it will ask merchants for identity information to protect customers from buying stolen items.

Special Transaction Types

GRAFT defines a series of special transactions to increase the range of possibilities of the merchant. All this transactions are configurable smart contracts, created from the GRAFT's point-of-sale app, no need to have programming knowledge. These include:

• Authorize: In this type of transactions are those that are paid at the end of the use of the service, such as hotel reservations, consumption in restaurants, car rental, etc. In these transactions, the client's account will be temporarily blocked until the payment is confirmed.

• PreAuth: These are long-term contracts established between the customer the merchant; Examples of these are cable TV subscriptions, magazines subscriptions, room rentals, etc. Unlike the previous ones, this can be canceled at any time by the client.

• Complete/Cancel: They allow to end or cancel Authorize or PreAuth transactions.

• Transfer: They are transfers of funds between user accounts of the GRAFT platform.

• Schedule: They are programmable transfers, which will be made at a specific date and time. Such as dues payment or loans.

• Escrow: This transfer is used to guard the funds of an escrow, the funds will be released depending on a scheduled event.

• Refund: This transfer is used to make merchandise returns.

Merchants Tokens

The GRAFT platform allows sellers to create their own token (using configurable smart contracts) in a simple way and without requiring any programming skills. Thereby, merchants can implement important business features with minimal effort and low cost to their business.

These include:

• Store Credits: They are used by merchants to make merchandise returns or exchanges. Therefore, they do not lose the client and the income.

• Loyalty Rewards: They are sales strategies used by shop owners to encourage both customer loyalty and purchases. These tokens usually have an expiration time to prevent the accumulation of them.

• Gift Certificates: This is another type of marketing strategy that allows merchants to attract customers. These token have monetary value or fiat and can be purchased in the same store or online. They are usually used to buy items from the store or sold amongst customers.

• Discount Coupons: These are used to obtain discounts on purchases of shop's items. They are distributed by the merchant on paper or directly in the client's wallet.

These tokens are not necessarily directly associated with cryptocurrencies or fiat.

Examples of a Variety of Accepted Methods of Payments and Payouts

Service Brokers

The GRAFT network will use the service broker when it can not perform a particular operation, since the GRAFT network can only process transactions with GRFT tokens, the service brokers will be the gateway that allows the payments of different cryptocurrencies and credit cards. Converting the payment means to GRFT tokens to process the transactions within the GRAFT network and vice versa convert the GRFT tokens to make the payments in other cryptocurrencies or fiat. In the following image you can see how service brokers work.

Source

The service brokers, as can be seen, operate in a transparent manner for both the client and the merchant. The service brokes will compete to offer the best rates and services within the GRAFT network. Service brokers can be selected by merchants, since these are the ones who will pay the transaction fees.

Reputation Score

Each member of the GRAFT network is assigned a level of reputation, both to customers and merchants, and even owners of supernodes are assigned a reputation value. This value is calculated constantly and automatically by the supernodes through the information obtained during the operations carried out by the participants.

Reputation allows merchants to get to know their customers, allowing them to assign authorization limits to their transactions or payments, especially during off-line operations. In the same way, customers can know the reputation of the merchant regarding to the service provided. It is important to emphasize that the reputation does not compromise the privacy of each participants of the GRAFT network.

CryptoNote

CryptoNote allows users to maintain privacy in blockchain ecosystems, through the following features: It provides users with a completely anonymous payment scheme. Implementing a ring signature technology (untraceable payments), allows users to create multiple addresses to receive payments, which makes it impossible determine who receives the payments (unlinkable transactions), avoids double-spending, in this way one user cannot use the same money twice. All of this makes blockchain resistance to analysis too.

User Applications

GRAFT Wallet App

GRAFT Wallet comes in a mobile version for iOS and Android; and desktop versions for PC or Mac. It also comes as an extension of the Chrome browser. This app allows users to make payments in GRFT tokens and other cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, LTC, etc.) and transfers in GRFT tokens.

GRAFT Point-of-Sale App

GRAFT Point-of-Sale comes in a mobile version for iOS and Android; and desktop versions for PC or Mac. This app allows merchants to receive payments in GRFT tokens and other cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, LTC, etc) and credit/debit cards, as well as configuring payouts in cryptocurrencies or fiat.

GRAFT Payment Terminal App

Merchants can use Verifone or Ingenico payment terminal as a means to process the payments of the items. These are standard media known to the merchants and are compatible with the GRAFT network.

GRAFT CryptoFind App

GRAFT CryptoFind App allows users to find a store which accepts cryptocurrencies. It also allows merchants to update their information or join the network of places that use the GRAFT platform. Besides, it helps building a list of potential businesses that will use GRAFT platform and begin to accept cryptocurrencies; GRAFT will reward users for every business confirmed in their list.

GRAFT SDK

The GRAFT SDK includes a series of tools and libraries for developers, which will allow the integration of software for point of sale and shopping cart for both online applications and physical stores.

Conclusion

We have seen how the GRAFT platform allows the merchant to accept payments with cryptocurrencies without having to change their equipment and work in the same conventional way that they have been working. Thanks to the automatic response time of the platform, cryptocurrency transactions will be carried out in seconds, and with low costs in transaction fees; thus benefiting the merchant (increasing revenues with this new type of clients) and allowing the customer not only to pay with crypto currencies but will be free of fees per transaction.

Obviously, this will have an impact on how cryptocurrencies look like static currencies held in digital wallets. It will convert cryptocurrency into a universal means of payment both for services (water, electricity, cable TV, lodging, etc.) and for products and items in physical establishments anywhere in the world.

Anexes

Payments type comparison

Source

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My Video presentation