Welcome back to our bi-monthly reporting, the team is working tirelessly to deliver the ultimate finance application and we are excited to be nearing the final stages of development.

Pinned Announcements

- You can buy BTC, ETH & PLU on our BETA PlutusDEX platform with 0% fees.
- Our BETA Plutus Tap & Pay mobile app is available on Android and iOS. It lets you sell crypto for fiat and withdraw to your bank account via SEPA transfers.
- We aim for a complete product overhaul including the card release to be completed in the coming weeks.

Development Update

Onboarding
The tech team has expanded, and we have familiarised the new employees with our products, services and processes. We are happy with the newly acquired applicants and they have already proven worthy hires.

Integration of Financial Management Systems
Plutus possess two finance partners which strengthens our available options and provides us with more flexibility than other crypto start-ups within the payments industry. The tech team has implemented multi-currency in dev environment and integrated both systems under the hood.

Backend & Infrastructure
The tech team has been working on database management and updated our system to meet our current stable release. We are using the same established database engine we used in Plutus 1.0, however, the software’s latest release has seen significant performance improvements. With this in mind, we have mixed an upgrade and migration into our Plutus 2.0 preparation process and now have dev and UAT environments upgraded.

PlutusDEX UI Improvements
Our development team has worked on improvements to our UI of the trading platform where one can buy, sell and top up their card balance directly with fiat or crypto by proxy. The UI for topping up one’s card with crypto will be more intuitive for users in our Plutus 2.0 release.

Marketing Update

Card Designs
Our card layout has been approved and we are now in the final stretch of production and packaging discussions. We are in the process of ensuring availability of card ordering shortly after the upcoming Plutus 2.0 release. We are currently piloting our cards internally, and with select users on our Telegram; there are more details on this later in the report.

Our Waiting List Is Open
We have opened the floodgates to our Plutus Debit Card waiting list. Just submit your email address on our corporate homepage to ensure you are first in line for any news regarding our Plutus Debit Card services. You can sign up here.

PR Progress
We have secured various editorial coverage in leading crypto and fintech publications in line with our upcoming announcements. We are continuing to speak with other tier-one press outlets regarding our progress to ensure as much visibility as possible during this critical period. Our international calendar of PR activities kicks off over the coming weeks so stay tuned for our latest article features.

Speaker Events
The marketing team has also actively been speaking with various finance and blockchain event companies regarding speaker slots for both our CEO, and to announce our new product features. Stay tuned as we have a busy calendar this year already.

New Platforms
Plutus is now on Blockfolio Signal! We are improving our communications with you, the community, so you can instantly discover the latest news about our next-generation finance platform. To find out the latest updates and exciting announcements directly from our C-suite team, join us here.

Plutus has also joined Discord, a free and secure chat channel available on both mobile and web. We have divided the platform into useful categories and sub-channels to make it easier for our users. Make sure you join us here.

New Hires

We are continuing to expand our highly reputable development team. Plutus 2.0 will not be the end of our development as we have plenty more milestones in the pipeline we aim to achieve. With this in mind, we have recruited three more software developers who excel within their field to help us across the final stretch and into the next chapters of product development.

Tomas Rastenis has taken the Senior Frontend Developer role at Plutus. He has delivered visually demanding and responsive products for big-name brands in the past and has implemented connection to the single Euro payment area using the Bank of Lithuania as a gateway. With over five years of software development experience, Tomas is a great addition to the team.

Edvards Kazlouski has joined Plutus with the role of Frontend Developer. He has delivered multiple frontend customer solutions including a shopping app and systems for both vulnerability management and talent acquisition. Edvards graduated from Belarusian State University, Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, and possesses more than five years of web development experience that will greatly benefit the Plutus team.

Daniel Witkowski joins us as a Senior DevOps Engineer with almost eight years of industry experience behind him. Daniel graduated from the University of Applied Informatics and BTM Management in Warsaw and worked as an IT administrator for numerous years before joining an advanced software R&D company.

General News

Test Card Pilot
The Plutus staff will be testing our Plutus Pilot Cards next week to ensure they are robust enough for our community; the team will run various scenarios across six subcategories and adjust the build accordingly if necessary.

We are rolling out a small batch of cards to selective community members for further verification. You can join our Telegram channel for more info on applying.

KPI Development
We have slowly and carefully selected team KPIs and we are now putting in place a data pipeline infrastructure that we can use to generate monthly reports for the senior managers to analyse. This will help us determine if the actions we are taking on a daily basis are moving us towards our business goals, and also enables a thorough assessment of our products and services. Compliance and Customer Service KPIs are locked down and implemented; Marketing and Product & Operations KPIs are next on the list.

Listings
Awareness of Plutus is growing, and our utility token (PLU) has been listed on various websites, wallets and exchanges over the last fortnight.

- Pluton is now available on Atomic Wallet, a universal multi-asset wallet with a built-in decentralised exchange.
- Pluton has been verified on Blockspot.io, a blockchain data platform that can be used to track and analyse our native utility token.
- You can now trade PLU/BTC and PLU/ETH pairings on CoinExchange.io.

May we remind you to look out for phishing scams when using any platform or services that refer to Plutus. Security is of paramount importance to us and we will always ensure our users and their assets are safe. Please conduct your own due diligence for instances outside of our control when using any third party services, these are not partners of Plutus and they have added PLU due to its decentralised nature and use cases provided by Plutus.

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Fact: The decentralised nature of Bitcoin means it cannot be banned, only regulated.

The UK Treasury Committee is investigating ways to regulate cryptocurrencies. Plutus has taken every precautious possible since its inception to ensure we are 100% regulatory compliant in every area. Regulations could heavily impact a large number of crypto start-ups, however, our foresight into such trends will ensure our longevity in the market.

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Join us on Telegram and read the full update on our Medium page.

Our Plutus Debit Card waiting list is now open! Head over to our website and sign up on the homepage and we’ll immediately inform you when our Plutus Debit Card service is available. We are moments away from delivering the future of finance applications.

https://plutus.it/

We are excited to have joined Blockfolio Signal! To find out the latest news, updates and exciting announcements directly from our C-suite team, join us here.

https://blockfolio.com/coin/PLU

You can now trade PLU/BTC and PLU/ETH on CoinExchange.io

Welcome back to our bi-monthly reporting, we have made some great progress over the last fortnight and hired some talented individuals to help build the future of finance applications.

Pinned Announcements

- You can buy BTC, ETH & PLU on our BETA PlutusDEX platform with 0% fees.

- Our BETA Plutus Tap & Pay mobile app is available on Android and iOS. It lets you sell crypto for fiat and withdraw to your bank account via SEPA transfers.

- We aim for a complete product overhaul including the card release to be completed in the coming weeks.

Development Update

Connectivity
The tech team has now established additional connectivity with our payment solutions provider to expand our currency set, adding functionality for GBP. This is a major development.

KYC Integration
Our KYC integration is complete and going through internal testing for Plutus 2.0, this includes watchlist filtering support and completed functionality to order a new card. These features are now in quality assurance.

Product
The product team is designing the integrated 3rd party wallet user interface which will enable users to interact with their cryptocurrency holdings via our application. We’re also designing a new transaction table where we can merge account and card transactions in a way that is intuitive for users. This includes updating the design for transferring funds and adding funds to account and card.

Mobile Development
We have switched from using native languages to the React Native framework for the mobile application build. We are reconfiguring and including all reusable components, these are re-designed to meet our brand guidelines.

Analytics
We have built our Plutus 2.0 analytics stack which will provide seamless product feedback loops, this will allow us to deliver constant improvements to our platform.

Marketing Update

Card Packaging
We have partnered with a leading packaging provider in order to deliver a premium service with packages that will house your very own Plutus Debit Card. We want to ensure a great user experience whilst remaining conscientious over our environmental footprint and brand ethos. We have explored all the available options and we are currently testing our favourite designs; we look forward to sharing our packaged Plutus Debit Card with you soon.

YouTubers
The marketing team is looking to build relationships with key crypto brands that have attained credible reputations within the sector. We have opened discussions and performed background checks on a select number of YouTube influencers who possess a strong following of users that match our target demographic. We believe some honest reviews of our platform will greatly elevate awareness in the run-up to our Plutus 2.0 upgrade.

Press Event Planning
The team are preparing for their high-end press event for the release of our mobile application. This will be an invite-only event with tier-one press attending. We are planning the luxury press bag to give to our guests with Plutus branded gifts inside to encourage attendance and organic press coverage.

AMA
Last week, Plutus held an AMA session to answer all your questions on the upcoming Plutus 2.0 release. We would like to thank everyone who joined us, this was a great opportunity to interact with the community and we hope you found it productive. Below is a link to the thread where this commenced, if you have any other questions that were not covered during the session, please reach out on our Telegram channel here.

New Hires

Plutus has made a series of new hires that we believe will elevate the development of our platform. As you may know, we believe a strong team to be one of the fundamentals of building a professional and successful product and we are very selective of our applicants as a result.

Baris Cicek has joined us as a Senior Backend Developer with an MSc in Computer Engineering and over 10 years of professional experience as a software developer. Baris has a wealth of expertise within his field and has helped build complex marketplaces in the past; we believe his skills will be invaluable to our team.

Lyubomir Budakov has joined us as our new Mobile App Developer. He has a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Technical University of Sofia and he has gained extensive experience as a professional software developer over the last six years from both frontend and backend perspective. Lyubo has focused his efforts on mobile app development for the last three years which will prove helpful for our cause.

Ivaylo Ivanov has also joined us to empower the QA team. He comes with five years of professional software testing and quality assurance experience with a focus on mobile and web applications. Ivaylo will improve the quality of our software releases, strengthen the CI/CD pipeline and help squash bugs.

Aleksandr Promakh joined Plutus with 6 years of web development experience, combining frontend and backend development. Aleksandr has a strong mathematical background and a BSc degree from the Ural Federal University in Computer Engineering. He often contributes to open source projects and he has delivered code for world-renowned brands such as Yandex.

We are more than pleased with the successful candidates and we are keen to see what a fresh perspective can bring to the table. Plutus has hit an exciting period in development and our Plutus 2.0 upgrade will be arriving very soon.

David Morrison who is well-respected amongst the team and community has also been promoted to Community Manager, he will be at the forefront of communications with the public. If you have any questions relating to our products, services or announcements; you can reach out to David on our Telegram channel here.

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Fact: 2018 saw a 95% increase in contactless payments in comparison to the year prior.

We are integrating digital currencies into everyday living practices. The ability to access and manage both crypto and fiat from the same user interface, freely exchange between the two, and spend at over 400 million merchants using NFC technology is revolutionary. There is not a single player on the market who is achieving this in a non-custodial and secure manner like Plutus.
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Join us on Telegram and read the full update on our Medium page.

Please join the Plutus team for an AMA today about the upcoming plutus 2.0:

https://www.reddit.com/r/plutus/comments/aq5yr8/plutus_20_your_future_payments_financial_stack/

Welcome back to our bi-monthly reporting, the Plutus team has unveiled some major developments and we are in the process of bringing these to life.

Pinned Announcements

- You can buy BTC, ETH & PLU on our BETA PlutusDEX platform with 0% fees.

- Our BETA Plutus Tap & Pay mobile app is available on Android and iOS. It lets you sell crypto for fiat and withdraw to your bank account via SEPA transfers.

- We have released our vision of Plutus 2.0, the upgrade will be arriving in Q1 2019.

Development Update

Cards
In order to accelerate the timeline of issuing cards, we have been diligently working with our universal card issuing partner to align our card designs within their technical tolerances. We are in agreement with the final card format and we are pleased with the current standings and delivery timeline.

Mobile Designs
We have redesigned the mobile on-boarding flow with the goal of moving a user as rapidly through the process as possible. The user story has been tested rigorously to build a seamless experience from login to payment.

Virtual Cards
The workflow for enabling virtual cards has been outlined and executed, they will be available on your account dashboard after we ship your physical card. Both physical and virtual cards are tied to your Plutus account, however, as an added security measure the fiat balance in your Plutus account is not tied to the balance in your debit card. You can manage your daily spending and transfer funds between your physical/virtual card and your current account directly from your Plutus app.

New Plutus 2.0 Landing Page
The average user spends just seconds on a webpage before clicking further or abandoning the site. Our new 2.0 web page will encourage users to quickly discover new features, evaluate pricing, set up accounts and trade crypto. Multi-language functionality is also a webpage feature we are looking to offer over the coming months.

Marketing Update

Implementing Weekly Plan
The marketing team prepared their weekly plan running up to the Plutus 2.0 upgrade and beyond. We are sticking to community-based organic marketing which includes company announcements via blogs, educational videos, social posts, content, company emails, press community events and more. This plan is well underway.

Press Networking
The team are also busy growing their press network by meeting with numerous journalist and leading finance publishers in order to provide premium coverage and awareness for our product upgrade. We have secured some exciting coverage and we believe this organic growth from genuinely impressive product developments is the key to long-term success.

Exchange

Pluton (PLU) is listed on third-party services such as Hitbtc, IDEX & other decentralised (ERC20) exchanges. If you would like to test our service, you can obtain Pluton from other users externally or from users of the Plutus platform using our built-in PlutusDEX.

We are continuing our research into exchanges for our reward token that we believe bring fair benefits to the usage and customer adoption of our platform.

Plutus Vacancies

We are in the process of hiring for two new roles: Senior Frontend Developer and Head of Blockchain. We are seeking top-end talent to contribute to our platform in order to accommodate the progress being made. If you believe you have the skill set required to add value to our company or know of someone who does, then please refer to our applications listed here.

Plutus 2.0

Last week our CEO, Danial Daychopan, announced our future vision of the company. The approaching upgrade will transform Plutus into a next-generation finance platform that incorporates both fiat and crypto.

Users will be able to hold GBP/EUR in a Plutus current account and access their personal integrated cryptocurrency wallet from the same interface as opposed to only crypto deposits available on the current version. We are also converging our current services so that both buy and sell functionality is available on desktop and mobile. The ability to access and manage your crypto/fiat within a single app, and freely exchange between the two asset types, is a development that will bring simplicity to a tech-heavy market.

Danial, says, “Our team is thoughtfully developing a finance app with a blockchain-based rewards system that will inadvertently increase real-world adoption of cryptocurrencies. This is part of our contribution to the ecosystem in enabling mass adoption.”

Every time you makes a purchase using the card, you will receive up to 3% back in the form of Pluton (PLU), our native utility token. PLU can be sent to friends, redeemed for additional Plutus services and those offered by our mainstream partners, or converted from within the platform to fiat and added to your card balance. More on this will be revealed in the coming weeks.

To read the full announcement, head over to our CEO, Danial Daychopan’s most recent blog post here, where he shares the future vision for Plutus. If you have any questions on the upgrade please post them on our Reddit thread or join him and our other team members live, we will be hosting an AMA session, on Monday 25th at 2PM GMT.

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Fact: Bitcoin has gone from 2 wallet addresses to nearly 32 million in just 10 years without any marketing.

People are realising the true potential of cryptocurrencies. The app features we are developing alongside our blockchain-backed rewards will inadvertently increase real-world adoption of cryptocurrencies.

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Join us on Telegram and read the full update on our Medium page.

Hi Stingfisher,

Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. We have raised this with the development team and it should be solved soon.

Since releasing our Plutus white paper back in 2016, we embarked on the task of funding our project and held a successful 9-day flash crowd sale which raised circa US$1 million worth of BTC and ETH. From here, we went on to develop and release several products such as our advanced decentralised P2P technology for crypto-to-fiat transactions (PlutusDEX) and a mobile app for fiat-to-crypto conversions.

Last year we faced some major obstacles, mainly due to red tapes imposed on the industry by our partners and regulators, but we have over come those challenges and also achieved many of our intended goals. To see a complete list of our achievements over 2018, please read our company blog post detailing the entire year’s developments here.

The Current Model

Our current platform is in open public beta and allows users to exchange between crypto and fiat. The selling feature is only available on the mobile app whereas the buying feature can be accessed via the PlutusDEX web platform. This was deliberate as the mobile app was intended to act strictly as a tool for money management and payments, enabling the sale of crypto in return for fiat which can then be used for everyday purchases via the app or Plutus Debit Card. Meanwhile, the web platform (PlutusDEX) was designed to provide liquidity for the app users, acting as fuel for the payment network as outlined in the Plutus white paper.

Since the release of our beta products last year, we have gathered useful feedback and data through user surveys and extensive research in order to improve our platform. We have used this information to understand the obstacles in the user journey and remove any points of friction, the result is a complete overhaul of the user flow on both mobile and web interfaces as well as a range of additional features.

Plutus 2.0

Financial Services
Plutus will no longer be restricted to just crypto deposits. Plutus 2.0 will be provide a range of new financial service features including the ability to initiate direct EUR and GBP deposits to load your Plutus debit card. You will be able to open a Plutus account from anywhere within the UK and over 30 European countries (EEA region) to send and receive Euros or Pound Sterlings as you wish; the set-up is done instantly without the need for credit checks. You will have complete control over your assets to manage as you please, making seamless payments, transfers and withdrawals worldwide.

Plutus 2.0 will promise same-day EUR settlements using SEPA transfers. This will enable you to rapidly move funds directly between your Plutus account and alternative bank accounts (yours or others). Deposits are instant and withdrawals completed within hours.

Pluton Reward System
Our platform comes complete with our own native loyalty rewards token, Pluton (PLU). Every time you load your virtual or physical debit balance with EUR or GBP, you will receive up to 3% back in the form of PLU (Pluton Yellow Paper). You can redeem the earned PLU for fiat using our built-in conversion tool (PlutusDEX) to load your account balance. Pluton is a great mechanism to increase adoption. It's emitted to users of the Plutus debit card which will be available to millions of customers in both the UK and in Europe. These essential features will inadvertently introduce cryptocurrencies into the real world and help accelerate mass adoption.

Additionally, we are adding further value to our rewards programme by creating a higher use case for PLU; such as the ability to redeem PLU for additional services offered by Plutus and our mainstream partners. Moving forward, our loyal customers will experience numerous benefits through their PLU rewards. More on this will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Revenue Model
Previously, users were able to avoid the fees incurred for loading their spending balance with Bitcoin and Ether by using Pluton. Plutus 2.0 no longer plans to charge fees for deposits of any kind, instead, we are moving to a tiered fee subscription model. Your earned PLU can also be redeemed for free subscriptions to our premium services and many other upcoming features.

Product Convergence
Plutus provides a complete non-custodial way of exchanging crypto and fiat using its built-in peer-to-peer decentralised technology, the PlutusDEX. On the current version, both the selling of crypto to fiat and withdrawal is done via the mobile app, and the buying is done via the web interface.

We are now making buy and sell functionality available on both device types (desktop and mobile). The PlutusDEX will be merged with our app into one place to produce an all-encompassing product, combining the two will greatly improve the user experience of our platform and provide a multi-functional application.

User Journey
Improving the user journey has been the highest priority for myself and the team while working on this update. As a non-custodial application, Plutus cannot provide its own crypto wallet to users; in order to create a seamless in-app experience, we are integrating a well-known decentralised third-party wallet to allow an easier user interface for the buying and selling of crypto.

Research & Development
We are currently looking into tools that will bring greater liquidity to the platform. We want to ensure all buy and sell orders fill instantly at the market spot rate in order to provide users with on-the-go trading options. The PlutusDEX uses a weighted average of rates from all the top exchanges to execute trades at spot rate and our next aim is faster conversions for all our available assets. This will not be part of the approaching upgrade but it will be added to the feature set at a later date.

In Summary

We have some impressive developments arriving in 2019 and over the next few months, we look forward to releasing our extensive feature sets mentioned in this article. This has been a great journey so far for the Plutus team and we are excited to embark on the next stages of development.

We are proud to be one of the rare start-ups out of several thousand ICO’s and crowd sales to have gone from a white paper to a functioning product, and we have done so at a fraction of the funding compared to industry standards whilst also acquiring a strong team of professionals along the way.

In the upcoming Plutus 2.0 release (due by 31st March 2019), we are committed to improving our platform and delivering on the promise of an easy to use digital financial service and payments platform.

I will be holding an AMA with the Plutus team on Reddit at 2pm GMT on Monday 25th Feb to answer your questions on any of the above. In the meantime, you can join our official Telegram channel to speak with a Plutus team member.

Welcome back to our bi-monthly reporting, the Plutus team has been working at full speed on a wide variety of tasks over the last fortnight and we are pleased with the progress being made.

Pinned Announcements

- You can buy BTC, ETH & PLU on our BETA PlutusDEX platform with 0% fees.

- Our BETA Plutus Tap & Pay mobile app is available on Android and iOS. It lets you sell crypto for fiat and withdraw to your bank account via SEPA transfers.

- We aim for a complete product overhaul including the card release to be completed in the coming months.

Development Update

KYC & UX

We have been refining our AML and KYC policies with an established next-generation screening and monitoring tool in order to ensure our regulatory measures meet the strict traditional banking and payments standards. This was a lengthy process, but we are on track.

Enhancements have also been made to the UX of the KYC process from a user’s perspective on both web and mobile applications. We have additionally set up learning procedures and analytics around KYC interactions so we can learn and iterate rapidly from our users for future amendments.

Security Audits

We passed our security audit. We were required to undergo a full manual security penetration test of our DEX application for our card provider, to prove the robustness of our security features. The renowned software audit company accepted our approach and the process enabled us to implement some small changes that will further increase our security.

We also completed the implementation of a service side antivirus, this was a hard requirement for our worldwide card provider — another box checked off.

Other progress includes optimisation of the KYC function (no longer writes data to disk, faster, less IO); implementation of EFK for improved log aggregation and monitoring; analysis (and rejection) of EKS for Kubernetes management.

Marketing Update

The marketing team held an internal meeting to discuss the aesthetics of our upcoming Plutus Debit Cards; evaluating the textures, colours and how we can differentiate ourselves from the rest of the market. We also engaged with two leading card manufacturers, who supply most household name cards, to discuss what is possible with regards to finishes and special effects.

The team has been working avidly on our content video strategy in line with our anticipated card release due over the coming months. We have outlined and created a schedule of titles and formats of 11 how-to videos, these will be supported by additional content and digital promotions.

With our Plutus 2.0 upgrade approaching, the team has laid out the designs for of a new website — more specifically the written content side and not the imagery. This includes the sub-pages, our products, feature descriptions and navigations.

On top of this, we continue to prepare for our large scale marketing activities; this includes ongoing press networking, identifying potential strategic brand partners for our launch, narrowing down potential speaker events, and finalising of our blogger/influencer activities.

The team has upped their regular posting across various social media platforms and this will be continued over the coming weeks.

Plutus Vacancies

In order to accommodate the progress being made, we have decided to further expand our impressive workforce. We are looking for four new talented individuals to join our team and grow Plutus to its full potential.

Senior DevOps Engineer

We are seeking an experienced Senior DevOps Engineer interested in improving our highly available, robust and secure platform on AWS. The newest member will be responsible for architecting and implementing solutions, as well as coordinating with the teams responsible for other layers of the product development.

Senior Frontend Developer

The successful applicant must have a passion for web application development and the related ecosystem of tools and libraries. They must be able to demonstrate: strong frontend skills, the ability to produce pixel-perfect picture, extensive React/Redux experience and proficient Javascript/CSS/HTML coding.

Senior Full Stack Developer

This role requires a similar skill set to our Senior Frontend Developer role plus additional strong backend experience with Node.js/Express development. Our applicants must also possess strong SQL, PostgreSQL coding principles.

Head of Blockchain

We are also in search of a respected, reputed blockchain specialist with a good understanding of Financial Services and regulatory framework. The successful candidate will provide thought-leadership on all things crypto and blockchain, as well as some hands-on solidity programming and public speaking.

Building a product is a highly collaborative effort, and as such, strong team players with a commitment to perfection is a must. If you feel capable of contributing to the Plutus platform, or know of someone who might be suitable, then please refer to our application page here.

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Fact: It’s possible to buy as little as 0.00000001฿ (aka 1 Satoshi) which is less than a thousandth of a penny.

We currently support Bitcoin trading for zero fees on our decentralised exchange, the PlutusDEX. Although much more challenging to build, decentralised exchanges offer far better security as there is no central storage of funds susceptible to hacks, corruption etc. Decentralised exchanges match users looking to trade directly instead of acting as the trusted middleman in possession of your assets.

Join us on Telegram and read the full update on our Medium page.

Welcome back to our bi-monthly reporting, we hope you have enjoyed the start to the new year. Work is well underway to deliver on our next product upgrade which we will announce as soon as possible. For now, we hope you enjoy the latest edition of our company report.

Pinned Announcements

- You can buy BTC, ETH & PLU on our BETA PlutusDEX platform with 0% fees.

- Our BETA Plutus Tap & Pay mobile app is available on Android and iOS. It lets you sell crypto for fiat and withdraw to your bank account via SEPA transfers.

- We aim for a complete product overhaul including the card release to be completed in the coming months.

Development Update

Payment Provider Integration

We have been working on system integration, setting up connectivity with our payment solutions provider — this includes staging, documentation, regression testing and resolved KYC errors. The tech team ran a high-level audit and discovered 5 findings which we aim to completely address.

The development team are now planning our upcoming priorities with engineers for 2019, this includes some infrastructure and security audit workflow preparations — all this is to ensure your transactions are safe and secure.

Card Issuance

We have been working with a third-party card service provider to roll out cards, this includes working on API integrations. We have been through this procedure previously and the experience should ensure a faster and more efficient process.

We’ll let everyone know as soon as we have firmer updates on card release — this is our top priority for the near-term and we are very excited to reveal what the team have been working on.

Audit Preparation

Additionally, in order to make sure we are compliant with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), we’re auditing our features and user-facing UI to ensure we pass FCA’s Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) litmus test. We have always ensured we remain compliant in every way and we welcome the UK Treasury Committee’s pending regulation in the space; we are prepping and aligning ourselves ahead of time.

Marketing Update

The marketing team has revised all customer-facing content in order to guarantee the language used stays in line with regulatory recommendations, this has been done to ensure our intended partnerships go ahead as planned.

The team has also been consolidating the brand’s identity, Plutus is a high-quality brand and we want all related imagery, design and branding to reflect this.

Our upcoming Plutus cards will be delivered by a premium packaging company for a brand new user experience. It is at the forefront of our consideration that we bring you a pleasant user experience with minimum packaging wastage in mind.

The social media activities for Q1 and beyond have been prepared well in advance to ensure consistency across all platforms and to help prioritise larger scale marketing activities. Join us on Instagram and Twitter to see this in action.

Plutus 2.0

Our Plutus 2.0 announcement is currently on pause, the development team are continuing to work on the exciting upgrades as planned and this has no effect on the actual delivery, however, the marketing team cannot discuss our upgrades to the public at this moment in time for various reasons.

We hope you understand, we were very excited to reveal what we have been working on but unfortunately, we cannot share this with you just yet.

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Fact: If you don’t own your private keys, you are not in possession of your assets.

Centralised exchanges hold the private keys to the exchange wallets. If you hold your assets on a centralised exchange you are allowing a third party to be in possession of the assets inside it. If something happens to the exchange (hacks, closure etc.), you could lose your funds.

We have developed a non-custodial decentralised exchange which means you are in sole possession of your private keys and the contained assets at all times; this offers far better security.

Join us on Telegram and read the full update on our Medium page.

Hi Doulon,

That is correct, we are aiming for a complete product launch in Q1 2019 and we are on track to deliver this. This includes the PlutusDEX, Plutus Tap & Pay app and the Plutus debit cards as described in our regular Plutus reports found both here and on Medium. The team are aware of the low liquidity issue on our exchange and we are working on solutions for the Plutus 2.0 update.

If you have any other questions, let us know.

Plutus

Patryk comes with almost 20 years of technology leadership experience, equipping leading financial technology organisations with tailor-made solutions worldwide. He previously held the position of Director of IT Operations at MoneyGram International.

MoneyGram is an international vendor of payment services with 3000 employees and over 350,000 partners. It is a demanding transaction environment with major financial institutions and banks as customers. Patryk oversaw: IT infrastructure operations, capacity management, transmissions (MFT) operations & engineering, and IT leadership at the MoneyGram International headquarters in Warsaw.

If you want to hear more about our new hiring and why we believe he's a great asset to the team then please give a read of the attached interview below.

https://medium.com/plutus-it/plutus-appoints-patryk-rzadzinski-previous-director-of-it-operations-at-moneygram-as-cto-e5f1465ad62b

Welcome to our Plutus Weekly Report on the 6th of December

Despite the year’s end approaching, efforts are on the rise to deliver an unrivalled service; the team have navigated a few obstacles this week and successfully managed to stay on track. Here is our weekly report summarising the events that have occurred…

What has the Development Team achieved this week?

This week the Development Team has improved the session management functionality of our PlutusDEX web version. The changes are currently in quality assurance and will be rolled out later this week to production.

We urgently updated our infrastructure after information in the news revealed vulnerabilities in the event-stream package.

The team added health check functionality to our microservices in clusters and were also updated to a new and improved format that is more scalable which will help ensure the service runs properly.

Development progress with our new providers for the Plutus card integration is moving quickly and the team is already able to pass the whole flow from the backend perspective in sandbox.

Updates from the Marketing Department

This week the Marketing Team have signed up for FinTech Connect, the UK’s largest fintech conference and trade show. This will be a great opportunity to gain insight into innovative financial products and to network with leading figures in the space.

The team has also engaged in a range of research activities into both economic and cryptocurrency trends. On top of this, we have investigated social media tracking products to help better understand our higher performing activities and areas of improvement, such as our weekly update, entering the new year we hope to have a fresh layout that makes our content more visually appealing to readers.

We are continuing to add evergreen content to our Plutus Publications page and want to provide insightful content to the community that helps establish our position as opinion leaders in the field. Read our latest addition here.

Bi-Monthly Reminder

We would like to remind you that from now on, our Plutus reporting will be released on a bi-monthly basis. You can expect our next and final Plutus report of the year to be available by 19th December.

We still remain the only crypto payments company to reveal such regular and detailed commentary on the behind-the-scenes work. We also believe that going bi-monthly will help document more concise and insightful reporting on our company as at times some parts of the development take longer than a single week to formulate or implement.

We want to be as transparent as possible but also deliver acutely accurate information.

New Product Owner

Over the last couple of months, the team have been sourcing the addition of a new Product Owner. Plutus always strives to hire only the best employees for the project in order to deliver excellence. With this in mind, we are happy to announce our latest hire, Minyi Soon.

Minyi has a diverse background across asset management, blockchain, product and tech. She has previously worked as an investment analyst within Legacy Financial Services, with a focus on research, asset allocation and trading. She then transitioned into building both VC and non-VC products.

She carries experience building tech products at various stages of growth, across multiple sectors, with an intense focus on aligning behavioural data and design with business goals.

Her last role was Senior Product Owner at London-based Crypto Digital Asset Exchange, BlockexMarkets, where she was responsible for building their blockchain-based tokenization product and user acquisition.

Her first foray into bitcoin was in February 2014 when it was just £203, making her an early adopter in the field by today’s standards.

She graduated with an Economics degree and is an alumni of the Blockchain Strategy Programme at Oxford University. We are excited to have her on board and look forward to the progress we can make with her added contributions.

Social Reminder

As always, we would like to remind you of our various social media channels. Be sure to follow us on each one to stay fully up-to-date on the Plutus project.

Our Telegram is the best way to get in direct contact with our staff or community. If you have any questions relating to the project, this is the best place to ask them. The group discusses project developments, FAQs, important topics and crypto giveaways (there is a strong chance that you could win €200 worth of PLU just for participating in our channel). Join us here.

For more detailed breakdowns of our project developments, visit our Plutus Medium page. We regularly discuss the company challenges, advances and noteworthy events experienced by the team. Take a look here.

It’s also worth checking out our other platforms…

Reddit
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Steemit

About Plutus

For the first time readers, here is a brief explanation of how our project works and why we believe it is so revolutionary.

The aim is to be the most secure and reliable cryptocurrency payments platform globally. This will be achieved by combining a payments system with a decentralized exchange.

Before an in-store purchase is made, the users’ cryptocurrency holdings are converted into spendable fiat through our peer-to-peer exchange known as the PlutusDEX. The user can convert only the amount of crypto necessary for a purchase and pay via a Plutus debit card or mobile ‘Plutus Tap & Pay’ app. This overcomes the slow process of merchant adoption and makes crypto instantly usable at over 40 million stores worldwide.

A beta version of our PlutusDEX trading platform is available now and is quite possibly the fastest way to convert your cryptocurrency into a useable European bank balance. Whilst in beta we are offering the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies with zero fees attached, take a look here.

Unlike any of our competitors, we never store the funds of a user. Given the rising number of exchange breaches and constant advances in hacking techniques, we believe storing user assets a jeopardy to everyone involved. Instead, our users are in possession of their crypto and fiat at all times, making their funds immune to company hacks, corruption, downtime, closures etc. impacting their money in any way.

We are on target for a complete product release in Q1 2019, the Plutus 2.0 will include an intuitive user interface backed by the Plutus debit card, mobile ‘Plutus Tap & Pay’ app and PlutusDEX trading platform.

Welcome to our Plutus Weekly Report on the 28th of November

With the years end approaching there is a lot of smaller tasks being wrapped up alongside some preparations for our biggest approaching year to date. The team are working hard on an assortment of jobs necessary for a complete package launch in Q1.

What have the Development Team been up to?

This week the development team have made some adjustments to our existing ‘Plutus Tap & Pay’ app and discussed a proposal for future developments.

- Our employees have made a couple of infrastructure improvements and corrected some bugs relating to our Redis configuration.

- We are taking every precaution necessary to make our service the most secure out of any brand in the crypto payments sector. The Android version of our mobile app with additional warning screens for user safety is now complete and the team are currently testing quality assurance.

- The backend part of integration with our card provider is now ready to be integrated with the frontend, on top of this the product requirements have been adjusted slightly.

- The team have been spending some time planning the architecture for future product developments, this includes discussions over the architecture of the new onboarding flow, authorization revoke and refresh token procedures.

What has the Marketing Team Focused on this Week?

This week the marketing team have been continuing with their regular duties on top of their Q1 planning which we will delve into next week once a more concrete strategy is set in place.

- The team have put together some seasonal content for the community, this includes a summary of the entire year’s progress which breaks down all the highlights, developments and challenges faced by Plutus. We would encourage you to give it a read once available in December.

- We want to make it incredibly easy for newcomers to find sources on how Plutus operates and why our services are so revolutionary. We plan to release short educational videos that feature some of our key staff members, the purpose is to simply explain our Plutus services in a way that a mass market can understand.

- With this in mind, we will also be adding an ‘About Us’ section to our corporate website that clarifies our company’s story, purpose and product breakdown. This should not only be useful for the newcomers in understanding how Plutus works, but it also aims to improve transparency as to what stages of development we are at.

Our Hacker Bounty Programme is Still Active

As you will know by now, user security is a number one priority which is why we embarked on a Hacker Bounty Programme. This has been ongoing for several months and we are continuing our efforts to fortify the platforms security levels. Security Researchers will be rewarded for identifying any major bugs with €500 worth of our native utility token, PLU.

Our applicants will also be in with a chance of winning the €3,000 (PLU) jackpot for their efforts. To learn more about the programme, please take a look here.

Social Reminder

We want to grow our social media platforms and we would love for you to be a part of that. If you would like to stay up to date with the all the latest news emerging on Plutus, then be sure to follow our Medium page here. Our weekly update informing you of any blockers, relevant info and developmental progress is posted here first. Our 2018 summary will also be available on there very soon so stay tuned.

For any questions you may have relating to the project, be sure to ask them on our Telegram channel. This is the best way to stay informed on project developments, FAQ’s and giveaways (there is a strong chance you could win €200 worth of PLU just for joining and being active in our community chat). Be sure to join us here.

We are also active on…

Reddit
Steemit
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram

About Plutus

Plutus aims to be the most secure and user-friendly crypto payments service available to the masses. We are going to achieve this by combining a decentralized exchange with a payments system.

Payment will be processed via either the mobile ‘Plutus Tap & Pay’ app or the Plutus debit card. Users can exchange only the amount of crypto necessary to make a purchase into spendable fiat through our P2P exchange known as the PlutusDEX, these funds will then be usable for instant in-store purchases anywhere in the world.

Where are we at?

Our PlutusDEX which is essential to the entire project infrastructure is currently in beta testing, you can experience core functionalities such as the buying and selling of crypto instantaneously for zero fees. We provide BTC, ETH and PLU transactions to EUR accounts and the user will experience no attached costs until a fully launched product is available. To test out our service, please take a look here.

Our beta ‘Plutus Tap & Pay’ mobile app is also available (on Android and iOS) and facilitates crypto-fiat deposits, we have also integrated SEPA so users can instantly withdraw their converted crypto funds into a European Bank Account within minutes. We are potentially the fastest project to go from crypto to a bank balance with the level of security we offer. Thanks to our user feedback we are revamping the flow of our app for a more seamless experience. To try our current version early, take a look here.

An all-encompassing Q1 2019 update release is our target, this includes the Plutus debit card, mobile app and PlutusDEX, all built within the same portal for an improved user experience.

Hi wgd,

The difference separating us from similar payment platforms is our lack of a central repository; we never store the funds of a user at any point. This makes it impossible for company hacks, corruption or downtime to have any impact on the user’s funds. Given over 980,000 Bitcoins have been stolen, largely as a result of the lax security of centralized exchanges, we believe our decentralized exchange approach to be a big selling point. Security is of paramount importance to us.

Secure cryptocurrency projects can take time to develop but we have live beta services available to use right now. You can buy and sell cryptocurrencies at zero fees via our PlutusDEX platform, and our ‘Plutus Tap & Pay’ app is now available on Android/iOS. In 2019 we will be announcing new integrated features and our fully functional debit card.

If you have any other questions, please let us know

Plutus

Hi ELYCHAIN,

We completed our PLU crowdfunding in 2016, purchasing and sales of PLU can now be made via our live beta P2P exchange known as the PlutusDEX.

If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Plutus

Hey Doulon,

We plan on releasing our Plutus debit cards in Q1 2019, our marketing efforts will be ramping up in the build-up to this.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Plutus