Graft Network is a new generation blockchain company looking for a hybrid launch utilizing both classic mining and a newer initial coin offering (ICO) to raise funds. Rather than just launch a fancy coin with big promises, Graft has a working point-of-sale device to launch later in 2018 which will eventually work with many other crypto coins and a compatible credit card to allow POS crypto purchases.
2017 saw explosive growth across the crypto-verse with anything blockchain taking off and speculators or investors purchasing all forms of crypto currency. From $17 billion to now $500 billion, the entire market saw exponential type growth with some coins seeing 1000% or more growth last year. With millions of crypto owners looking for ways to use thier coins and enjoy the appreciation in price, Graft hopes to launch its network to allow merchants to capitalize.
Ripple (XRP), Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA) and companies like Pundi-X are some of the big players in the cross border payments and POS crypto business. With market values in the billions and Ripple competing with Ethereum as the second largest crypto coin there is demand for working payment processors to upend the Visa, Mastercard and American Express networks. Each legacy system while widely accepted charges high fees to small merchants who choose to accept the processors. Graft hopes to provide an alternative to legacy payment processors at lightning like speeds with much lower fees.
The Graft Mainnet Launch
Graft may be unique in offering both an ICO and mineable network at launch for two ways to build a stake in the company and digital coins. The current price for GRAFT (GRF) coins is set at 0.0000262 BTC but will also be accepting Monero (XMR), Ethereum (ETH) and NEM (XEM). Bonuses are paid for volume buyers with minimum purchase set at 1500 GRF coins.
In addition to purchasing coins, GFT is based on the cryptonight algorithm which is the same as Monero. At launch the coin will be mineable by those with appropriate hardware. While outside of the realm of this website, generally AMD graphics cards and CPUs work faster and more efficient on cryptonight but botnets are making a growing portion of miners on this encryption. There is a pre-mine ongoing so no word on difficulty at launch.
Legacy POS vs Graft POS
With fees north of 2% per transaction, a large portion of revenue is consumed simply by accepting cashless payments on legacy Visa, Mastercard and American Express networks. The trade-off for many merchants is lost business by not accepting credit cards. Without alternatives, most merchants begrudgingly accept the fees as a necessary part of business. Graft hopes to change this model and provide another network with real time processing with much lower fees.
With promises fees as low as 0.1% which can decrease with larger payments and a point-of-sale device compatible with mainstream credit cards Graft is hoping to gain wider use through the world starting with merchants. Much like Ripple, Graft promises payment processing in just a few seconds with decentralized processing using the mainnet (Miners) to settle payments in return for Graft coins.
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But beyond just the Graft coins, the network plans to work with many other crypto currencies that are limited by current network speeds from gaining wider acceptance. Bitcoin for instance can take hours to settle making it quite impractical for POS acceptance. By using the Graft wallet on a mobile device or compatible credit card Bitcoin will be sent on the Graft network with settling in just seconds opening up for micro-transactions for many currencies.
The Graft Network
The network works with more than just miners. There are several roles that work together to settle payments sort of like an exchange. Super-node owners are miners who settle payments in return for fees by contributing computer processing power. Service-brokers act like exchanges to perform currency exchange, pay-in and out, settling, verification of customers and can charge fees for services on the network. Third-party software vendors can make add-on applications that are specific to function such as custom merchant software. All work together so the user (customer) can use the network without technical knowledge, copying long wallet address, sending payments to exchanges and instead making the network usable just as simply as swiping a credit card.
Can Graft Gain Wider Use at Launch?
Hard to say. It is hard to unseat legacy systems. Ripple (XRP), Stellar (XLM), and Cardano (ADA) are doing a great job of proving it can be done although they have hardly made a dent in legacy systems. The proof is there that it can be done on the blockchain. Now Graft needs to prove it can provide a functioning POS product and convince customers the product is easy to use. Miners will mine at first without much convincing which will limit the network only to the amount of computing power on the network. What is left is for Graft to execute. The next few months should bring big news on their progress. Head over to the ICO link to find out more details.