Money has evolved in my very short lifetime from cash to plastic. I remember my first debit card; it was a New Year’s present from my Dad– in fact, one for each of us. The money he put into my account had made more sense to me back then because only one bank had one ATM in the city where I lived (and still live). There were no merchants accepting it as payment.
No chip-and-PIN. No real use at all.
I mean, think about it! The bank handed our debit cards –even my Mum’s card- to my father, and he gave them to us on New Year’s Eve after activating and setting a PIN all by himself! (Well, he is the one who put money on those accounts, and the bank manager was a close friend of him, yet still…)
Today, almost every merchant in the city – even the vendors in open-air bazaars – accepts debit/credit cards, and I’ve looked up the number of ATMs for this article: The current number is 79!
Who would have thought that use of debit/credit card would be commonplace?
So it wouldn’t be a big surprise to me if cryptocurrencies became commonplace in my lifetime.

And it appears that it wouldn’t be a big surprise to academics at Imperial College London, either.
A recent study from Imperial College London and eToro claims that cryptocurrencies will transition into mainstream use within the next decade.

"There's a lot of scepticism over cryptocurrencies and how they could ever become a day-today payment system used by the man on the street. In this research we show that cryptocurrencies have already made significant headway towards fulfilling the criteria for becoming a widely accepted method of payment." -Professor William Knottenbelt, Imperial College London

According to the paper –entitled “Cryptocurrencies: Overcoming Barriers to Trust and Adoption” – if cryptocurrencies are to become the new money, they need to fulfill three fundamental roles of traditional money, namely:

• Store of value
• Unit of account
• Medium of exchange.

And again, according to the paper, they already fulfill one of the three and act as a store of value.

In fact, Bitcoin partially fulfills all three of them. It is utilized as a store of value and unit of account and used as medium of exchange to buy certain goods and services.
The question here is, why certain goods and services?
Because merchants don’t know how to adapt their businesses to accept cryptocurrencies.
Because users have a hard time locating stores that accept cryptocurrencies.
Because of long confirmation times, unbalanced and unpredictable transaction fees, unsuitable payment flows, low scalability, incomplete security, lack of privacy due to traceability of blockchain, lack of trust between buyer and merchant, questionable utility , poor usability of end-user interfaces, lack of customer support… The list of technical limitations and business flaws of the existing cryptographic payment systems grows longer and longer.
Ultimately, because, “Money is like a myth that requires only imagination for its creation, but faith for its effectiveness,” as Professor Morris Perlman put it in 1999.

This is where Global Real-Time Authorizations and Funds Transfers (GRAFT) steps in.

GRAFT is a retail-oriented payment blockchain and a decentralized, real-time credit, debit and crypto payment processor that addresses all these issues and more.
With faith in cryptocurrencies and a functioning MainNet, the platform set out to overcome the barriers to mainstream adoption.

GRAFT Point of Sale

If merchants don’t know how to adapt their businesses to accept cryptocurrencies, then GRAFT adapts itself to their convenience.
No idea how to accept cryptocurrencies? Now it is just a click away to solve this big mystery. All they need to do is download GRAFT Mobile POS to their iOS / Android mobile device and start accepting payment in crypto.
It is that easy and that quick.

• GRAFT Mobile POS for iOS
• GRAFT Mobile POS for Android

GRAFT Terminal Integration

Not that easy for those who don’t want to go between their mobile devices and traditional payment terminals? There is a solution for them, too. Now GRAFT is integrating with their traditional POS terminals, such as Verifone and Ingenico. That means, without changing their current POS system, store owners can install a free application onto their terminal and start accepting payment in crypto.
It's more than easy; it's almost ready-made.

To Fee or Not to Fee

In an ideal world, cryptocurrencies would be free of charge. We don’t live in an ideal world, but GRAFT offers a better world than credit cards in terms of fees.
Credit cards charge merchants up to 3 % to accept payments while GRAFT costs them only half of that or less.

Real Time Authorization

Another technical limitation of the existing cryptographic payment systems is long confirmation times.
Using a consensus of always-on trusted supernodes ("authorization sample"), GRAFT processes all its transactions in real-time (within hundreds of milliseconds to a few seconds) without charging the customer an extra fee.

Instant Payouts in Local Fiat Currency

Finally, since the transactions can be settled in real time, customers can pay in GRAFT tokens, Bitcoins, altcoins and credit/debit cards while the merchants can configure payouts in Bitcoins, altcoins and local fiat currencies.
GRAFT is no different than the today’s credit card system!

Get Involved Easy

Let’s mainstream the cryptocurrency!

"The first email was sent in 1971, but it took nearly three decades for the technology to become commonplace with a user-friendly interface in the form of hotmail. The first ever bitcoin transaction took place a little over eight years ago and today we are already seeing it begin to meet the requirements of everyday money. Given the speed of adoption, we believe that we could see Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the high street within the decade. There are of course barriers to mainstream adoption, but they are far from insurmountable." -Iqbal Gandham, eToro UK Managing Director

“The wider use of cryptocurrencies is the next natural step,” as the aforementioned paper points out. Cryptocurrencies are not designed for the point of sale, true, but GRAFT has designed Point-of-Sale app. It is not easy to understand the technology behind cryptocurrencies, and the confusing terminology does not help, true, but GRAFT makes it easy to use crypto to buy the weekly shop for anyone -from merchants to customers. There are barriers to mainstream adoption, true, but GRAFT proves that they are indeed far from insurmountable!

Now it is time to download the GRAFT Mobile Wallet:

• GRAFT Multi-currency Mobile Wallet for iOS
• GRAFT Multi-currency Mobile Wallet for Android

And of course, GRAFT CryptoFind – you will definitely need it to find the locations that accept crypto because the number will grow every day.

• GRAFT CryptoFind for iOS
• GRAFT CryptoFind for Android

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Are you still sceptical whether cryptocurrencies could ever become a day-today payment system used by the man on the street?
Do you still think it will take a decade for cryptocurrencies to become mainstream?
With GRAFT, it seems like money is actually evolving in my very short lifetime from plastic to electronic bits!

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