Plutus Tap & Pay, the upcoming Android-only mobile app that will let people make bitcoin and Ethereum contactless payments at any merchant with a compatible device, raised more than $1 million in crowdfunding in nine days.
The startup, which was coined “one of the most anticipated bitcoin projects in 2016” by cryptocurrency news outlets, had over 1,000 people participate in the crowdfunding round. What’s more, the company said more than 4,532 members have already signed up for the upcoming app. “The response from our community was swift and tremendous,” says Plutus CCO Filip Martinka in a press release.
The company argues that Tap & Pay removes a big barrier to widespread adoption of alternative payment methods: merchant adoption. That’s because, with Plutus, customers don’t have to wait or worry if the merchant accepts bitcoin or Ethereum directly.
Plutus isn’t the only company that is trying to bring digital currency, particularly bitcoin and Ethereum, to the mainstream. Earlier this week, Coinbase, long a bitcoin-only supporter, announced it is finally adding site-wide support for Ethereum, the digital currency that allows peer-to-peer contracts.
Coinbase caters to both professional exchange traders, as well as consumers, and supporting the currency system-wide means lots of action for Ethereum. Coinbase is credited with making bitcoin trading easy, providing users with a simple interface to transact bitcoins, opening it up to the average person and not only the tech-savvy. That is now happening again with Ethereum, which will function in the same ways as bitcoin. Coinbase’s support for Ethereum has been growing since this spring when the company’s cofounder, Fred Ehrsam, penned a blog in which he argued Ethereum is at the forefront of digital currency. Around the time of the favorable blog post, Coinbase added support for Ethereum trading to GDAX, the cryptocurrency exchange for traders.
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