Singapore Retailers Hold “Token Day” to Promote Crypto

Bizkey, a point-of-sale platform, has announced that it is running a series of “Token Days” in Singapore. The platform has partnered with several retailers and merchants in the vicinity of Singapore’s Chinatown, and it will help those businesses accept cryptocurrency as payment over the next three weeks.

The event will promote cryptocurrency to the general public and tourists, who will be able to use several cryptocurrencies during the Token Days. People will be able to spend Ethereum, Binance Coin, Aelf, and Zilliqa at thirty different locations.

Many types of businesses are participating in the event, including restaurants, hotels, bars, and stores. The event will run from October 31, 2018 until November 18, 2018.

Crypto In Singapore

As Bizkey’s press release notes, Singapore has become “[something] of a cryptocurrency capital.” The Monetary Authority of Singapore issued guidelines last November that facilitated the creation of crypto and blockchain projects. Within a period of five months, Singapore ran 56 ICOs that collectively earned over a billion dollars.

These guidelines promoted the development of cryptocurrency in Singapore by differentiating utility tokens from security tokens. Many countries, including the United States, simply treat all ICOs as securities and subject them to heavy restrictions. Meanwhile, Singapore accommodates utility tokens, which merely represent payments for services and products.

Even before this policy, several leading cryptocurrencies were launched in Singapore: NEM was introduced in Singapore in 2014, and Qtum was conceived in the country in 2016. More recently, a group of Singapore banks has started to develop an invoice system that runs on Ripple.

In other words, Singapore has made significant contributions to the crypto world for some time now.

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Point-of-Sale Devices

Despite Singapore’s achievements, cryptocurrency has not been widely adopted for commerce. The Token Days event is intended to encourage purchasing and spending with crypto. Ken Huang, the CEO of Bizkey, has said that Token Days will be “the first time that retailers in Singapore will accept cryptocurrency as payment on such a large scale.”

Bizkey’s point-of-sale (POS) devices are a key part of this effort, and POS devices more generally are an instrumental part of crypto adoption worldwide. Other companies such as PundiX, RapidzPay, and Square have launched POS programs across the globe, and this event will make the technology more widely available in Singapore.

Point-of-sale devices allow merchants to accept crypto seamlessly thanks to built-in conversion features. Although POS devices are somewhat controversial because they are generally centralized, they have proven to be an effective way of facilitating crypto adoption.