so there has been a lot of hype in the market because the Palm Beach Confidential would supposedly recommend potcoin but then recommended Dash (huh?) for cannabis payment industry. They have a long article about why it is important etc. I see absolutely no reason why Tokes wouldn't do the job for this. Maybe Kov and the team should approach Teeka that does crypto analysis. I post the original private newsletter that came out some days ago: (I am lazy to fix all the cope paste problems but you get the idea
A Booming New Opportunity in Legal Marijuana
Payments
Just like the online auction market of the ’90s, there’s a booming new industry suffering from a payments
problem: legal marijuana.
In this month’s issue, I’ll show you how an up-and-coming payment provider is positioning itself to become
the PayPal of this exploding industry.
Today, 28 states and the District of Columbia have legalized some form of marijuana sales.
Analysts project the industry will rake in $6 billion this year alone. And the well-respected research
rm
Cowen expects legal cannabis sales to reach $50 billion by 2026—that’s a 700% increase.
American attitudes about legalized marijuana have changed radically over the years. According to an
October 2017 Gallup poll, nearly 65% of Americans support legalizing marijuana. That’s a record high.
(For comparison, in 1996, only 25% of Americans supported legal cannabis.)
This legalization movement has been a bonanza for the 50,000-plus growers and the 3,189 marijuana
dispensaries that have popped up around the country since 2012.
But this growth came with a dark side.
In 2013, three criminals kidnapped a marijuana grower in Fresno, California. They used a blowtorch to
torture him and mutilated his genitals... all in a (fruitless) e
ort to uncover his hidden cash stash.
This gruesome example shows just how dangerous operating a marijuana business can be.
You see, marijuana sales are still illegal under federal law. And that means banks can’t accept deposits
from cannabis-related businesses.
That has forced marijuana growers and sellers to hold stacks of cash—in some cases,
oor to ceiling. That
makes dispensaries juicy targets for criminals.
Aside from the obvious safety problems this poses for marijuana businesses, there is an economic one as
well.
One industry insider I spoke with told me that cash-handling costs are eating as much as 30% of gross
revenue for some dispensaries.
That means as much as 30 cents out of every $1 earned goes toward paying for guards, armored trucks,
guns, surveillance gear, etc.
Although banks won’t work with marijuana businesses, some credit unions will. But the costs are
prohibitive. They charge 3% on cash deposits.
In addition, credit unions demand a checking account fee of $7,500 per month. Even then, they place limits
on how much cash they will accept from marijuana businesses.
As already mentioned, Cowen projects the industry to grow to $50 billion by 2026. There’s no safe or
cheap way for the industry to process $50 billion in cash.
A change must be made.
Cryptocurrencies to the Rescue
Bitcoin would seem like a natural solution for the cannabis industry’s cash woes.
It’s secure, practically unhackable, and its fees are lower than using cash. However, bitcoin has one serious
drawback... con
rmation times.
Normally, it takes 10 minutes to con
rm a transaction on the bitcoin network. That’s far too long to wait in
a retail setting.
Imagine going to Wal-Mart to buy groceries... and the cashier makes you wait 10 minutes for your credit
card to clear. That just wouldn’t work in a store where you’re doing thousands of transactions per day.
What the marijuana industry needs is a highly secure cryptocurrency that can process transactions
immediately.
It should be easy to use. Plus, it must be integrated within the existing payment structure already used by
cashiers and clerks.
The cryptocurrency that can solve this problem will become the PayPal of the marijuana industry.
We’ve identi
ed a project that
lls every one of the legal cannabis market’s needs. It’s cheap to use, it
scales, and most importantly, it offers almost instantaneous conrmations.
