David Ben Kay on Pundi X making crypto as accessible as bottled water

0:00I'm Ashlyn Addison from event chain for investmentpitch media and FinTech news network and today on block teen interviews we have David Benkei the chief legal officer of context David welcome to the show it's a pleasure to have you today pleasure to be here awesome so please start off by telling us a little bit about Wendy X as a payment processor and

0:22how you guys are looking to increase adoption in the blockchain industry right well our core product upon DX is a point-of-sales device the expose and what we do is we put these into retailers and that enables a customer to purchase cryptocurrency from that retailer it also allows that customer to use crypto currency to purchase things at the retailer store that's awesome and

0:51yeah I have seen a video of it in action with Zack purchasing a coffee and it looks so easy and you know I mean one of our our core tag lines is to make purchasing cryptocurrency as these is purchasing a bottle of water and we really have perfected it to that point that's great to hear and I know that you guys actually have a lot of different projects going on

1:17inside pond TX but what are you guys really trying to focus on right now on the high level well on a high level we're really trying to create a new blockchain ecosystem it's going to even increase the spread of blockchain technologies um and so what we are aiming for and what we'll be launching soon is the function X blockchain ecosystem and quindi x RP r ex-post

1:47machine will be operating on that but it's a much greater ecosystem and so it really moves everything that we do today on the web to the blockchain and so our first new product for function X is the X phone and so it's a truly blockchain based smart phone that enables all of the functionality from a regular smartphone to be moved to the blockchain um and so this is the first of what

2:17would be many products not only that we come out with but that we hope will you know spread and there'll be a whole growth in the development community to put more apps onto the blockchain put more products onto the blockchain that sounds amazing and I'm really excited to see that guys actually have a phone because I feel there's a need for that in the industry but let's go back to the

2:41beginning you know is it is it true that you guys started this vision with you know the POS and the expose was that was the first product or is was that where you guys really started from well at the at the base was a payment system called Pune Mundi that started off in Indonesia and that was a regular payment system using QR codes and on top of that then

3:06we built the expose moving that from just a regular payment system to being able to use Kryptos for payments awesome so what what does that look like you know on the expose business side right now like these are actual physical hardware's that are in stores you know how many have you guys manufactured where are you distributing them throughout the world and are there a lot

3:28of merchants are using them there are our focus initially has been in Southeast Asia for a number of reasons number one were physically located here and also there's a huge need for this kind of payment system you're dealing with populations that we are calling you know the unbanked and so bringing the system to Southeast Asia makes the most sense also from a regulatory perspective

3:54we have a lot of jurisdictions here like Singapore and Hong Kong Taiwan the Philippines that are all very welcoming to this kind of technology in this kind of advancement so our focus initially has been here in in Asia Southeast Asia we have our headquarters in Singapore we have offices in Jakarta and Taipei and Tokyo and Seoul um and then we are also

4:21kind of expected we are expanding our next market is in Latin again you find a great need for it and you find a regulatory environment that's also very welcoming to us then we will gradually move into Europe and again you find particularly these small democracies that are providing great environments for this kind of growth so you have Malta and you have Lithuania

4:47and Estonia and those are all really great gateways into Europe so we're going there and obviously we have in our sights the United States but that from a cost perspective from a regulatory perspective is also probably the most challenging market yeah I would completely agree and it seems that you know North America's financial systems they have a lot of things in place and

5:12and regulatory wise so you know as the chief legal officer I'm guessing you took a quick view of that and and saw the opportunities in Latin America I know you know recently I've seen a lot of news about Venezuela and how other cryptocurrencies like – are moving in there and there's a huge need for that so that only makes sense that you guys are going there first but you know in

5:35North America especially you guys have to compete against these gigantic payment processors you know like Visa and MasterCard is that something that you guys are looking at you know when you move into North America that's one of the barriers as well as the regulatory barriers right right I mean there are all these challenges after all what's it's a very core of blockchain is

5:56decentralization so when you talk decentralization to to places where centralization has been at their core where you have banks or just a you know a few payment systems like MasterCard and Visa they're gonna be hugely challenged by the you know the entree of something that is decentralized so it will be a challenge but I think that

6:26it's one of those things that's going to be really grassroots motivated that's how you know blockchain began that's how it will grow or by people you know demanding its use and finding finding the reason for why it's going to be used so you know what types of cooperation will exist between sort of the blockchain community and the alternatives that it

6:50provides with you know the existing kind of centralized whether they're banks or credit card systems we'll have to wait and see but I think I think it's coming it's it definitely is coming and the market moves in cycles right and I have a feeling in 2019 at some point we're gonna have a huge rush of new people into the blockchain community because this technology is so revolutionary and

7:14I think we're also going to be facing I think probably another financial crisis if you will or in sort of the traditional institutional segment and that will also raise interest in the alternatives definitely and I feel like we're nearing that ten-year cycle so it's always good to be prepared now can you speak a little bit more about the blockchain ecosystem function X is this

7:42its own its own blockchain and if it is you know how far along is the development when is it being released or what are we to expect from it right it's already way into development and we're anticipating that the main net will be launched during the second quarter of 2019 and it's a open so you know we've made it open source this is something that you know we're developing but with

8:09the intention of really opening it up to the entire blockchain community and developer community and we it are very accessible if you will to developers so you know I mean if one compares for example the the number of apps that you have on a smartphone compared to the number of gaps you have on blockchain you know gaps are really far behind and so what function X enables is for a

8:37developer to I would almost say easily port what they have developed for a smartphone platform onto the blockchain and we've demonstrated this in a number of our events of the biggest one was in Bali coper of this year where we showed how it was very easy to to really support a an existing application that was developed for a smart smartphone onto

9:05the blockchain and our own our own X phone I mean we're not looking at sort of you know everybody moving entirely to a decentralized blockchain for for all of their telephone uses and so our X phone toggles very easily between a standard android-based smartphones and the blockchain phone and so there'll be times when you would want to use the blockchain and maybe times when you just

9:33want to use a standard smart phone so it will be a gradual process and we'll see how how the developer community takes to it because it does it does offer a whole new level of of security and also the ability for people to really control their own data when all of this is moved to to the blockchain Wow David that actually sounds revolutionary and it's a

10:00major need to just be able to easily port those applications you know into daps because that's a huge barrier there's a lot of blockchain developers that are coding things but the technological barriers to entry and having a you know a decentralized app store where all those gaps are available is still in its in its infancy so I'm really excited to see the main net launched and see how

10:24that grows out we're excited so can we talk a little bit about the business side is there a what is the business model around the expose payment processor you know a lot you know a lot of vendors are looking to avoid the merchants charges that Visa and MasterCard have traditionally given them you know are you guys similar in that way or is it just simply purchasing the

10:52hardware no we we incentivize the merchants so in other words there'll be a transaction fee and the merchants will be able to keep that transaction fee so instead of the merchants in the tradition system of paying Visa or MasterCard or whomever they'll be able to to keep that transact transaction fee and the transaction fee is significantly lower

11:20than you had in traditional credit card payment systems there's it depends again on particular markets that we're in and what's available um and what we're able to do with regard to to our providing what we're able to provide on the backend in terms of the payment system in some jurisdictions we'll be partnering with existing you know payment facilitators in other

11:46jurisdictions we may be providing that service ourselves that's great so let's just take a look at the long-term vision now of pontiac's you guys have a lot of stuff coming out I'm really excited for the function X but where do you guys see yourselves in in five years do you think function X will be the the main hub or will you still be sticking to payment

12:09processing primarily I I think function X will be as you as you call it the main hub it will be because our payment processing and the Expos will ultimately move to the function as function X blockchain platform so we'll be all working towards that it's not that we're giving up by any means our focus is still on suppose at this particular time

12:37and why is that so you know maybe I I need to make the the connection clearer but each ex-post device operates as a node on this new blockchain so you know I mean the the challenges that the current blockchain and particularly the ethereum blockchain have been facing are in terms of scalability and speed and so we believe by allowing these expose

13:08devices and we anticipate there'll be a hundred thousand of them out there by the end of of 2020 2021 each one operating as a node on a new blockchain will address the ich ins those issues of scalability and speed so our focus you know again at that high level is on the function X platform um and the expose device is just is one of those you know ways that

13:38we will be getting there the X phone you know is an example of a device will be developing other devices that will be operating on the function X blockchain and we feel quite certain that the the developer community and I use that word you know broadly not only in terms of those who are developing gaps but those who are developing new products will be

14:05you know developing their products for this new blockchain environment that's great David that's sounds like you guys have everything under control and there's a big task at hand but it sounds like you guys are up for the task so you guys got a lot of things to do are you guys looking at either expanding the team or are you just looking for more merchants and customers to join pontiacs

14:27oh we're always expanding always looking to expand the team um and you know building our our resources in terms of the human talent we have a you know terrific technical development team in in Shenzhen in the south of China we are building our marketing globally so we're always looking you know I think everyone always on there you know LinkedIn or Twitter says you know like we aren't

14:54hiring and we're definitely hiring so ah really probably a limitation that we have that's even greater than the sort of regulatory limitations that we sometimes face are in terms of human resources and so you know we're building the team always that's awesome well that's all the time that we have today David it was definitely a pleasure speaking to you

15:21and sounds like pontiacs has a lot of great things that I think we should speak about in the beginning of 2019 when we do a follow-up interview so thank you for your time today and let's let's talk soon Thank You Ashton for the opportunity I appreciate it