According to recent analysis by leading payments industry
and digital commerce news destination Let’s Talk Payments, in its 2015 report
on the state of the U.S. mcommerce market, the total value of transactions
conducted via smartphones and tablets is on track to hit somewhere around $120
billion by 2017, moving on the strength of increasing mobile device
proliferation that will create a consumer base of over 150 million users. Given
that the baseline mcommerce market was worth around anywhere from $58 billion
last year, according to data compiled from Forrester, eMarketer, FangDigital
and Comscoredatamine by MartMobi, to as much as $88 billion, according to
personalized retargeting company Criteo, and accounting for 27 percent of the
broader $305 billion ecommerce space, mobile payment technologies like digital
currency Bitcoin and mobile wallet services like Apple Pay (NASDAQ: AAPL) are
now gaining increased attention.
Indeed they should, as mobile transactions on the whole grew
by around 10 percent in Q4 2014 alone, and have grown to as much as 30 percent
of the ecommerce space this year according to Criteo. With no signs of slowing
down on the horizon, and now for the first time ever accounting for more than
50 percent of all ecommerce in markets like South Korean and Japan, mcommerce
has fully emerged as a high-growth target for venture capital, which plowed
$4.2 billion into the space from Q3 2013 to Q3 2014 (250 percent higher than in
2013). Globally, the portrait is even more compelling, with mcommerce taking up
an ever larger slice of the now $1.6 trillion global ecommerce pie with each
passing day. The U.S. mobile in-person market for NFC-based (near-field
communications, or contactless payments) transactions alone was around $3.7
billion last year, and this one chunk of the mcommerce space is set to nearly
double by the end of this year according to Forrester.
Cryptocurrency transaction technologies are a particularly
hot segment to keep an eye on, with tremendous room for growth and a nearly
$3.7 billion market cap that is currently dominated by Bitcoin ($3.135
billion). Bitcoin is really coming of age too, as the recent hard fork
transition to Bitcoin XT continues taking shape. With the goal of allowing the
Bitcoin network to overcome significant payment processing limitations, by
increasing the block size from 1 megabyte (effectively limiting volume to seven
or fewer transactions per second) and thus making the network more able to
service growing demand, Bitcoin XT would help the cryptocurrency compete with
payment processing networks like the one Visa uses, which can handle up to
56,000 payments per second. Perhaps more importantly, the regulatory
environment has also matured substantially, with the August 10 deadline having
recently passed for virtual currency business activity in the state of New York
to get up to speed with the New York Department of Financial Services’ (NYDFS)
June BitLicense policy stipulations.
The New York BitLicense framework heralds a new age for
cryptocurrency that could soon be characterized by 49 other states adopting
similar policies, which would require a formal application process and
licensing fees like those in New York, substantial hurdles which have shaken
out all but the sector’s most serious participants, such as leading industry
wallet service Coinbase. The new licensing framework has sent several entities
packing, like Hong Kong-based Bitfinex, the biggest Bitcoin exchange by dollar
volume, as well as the Kraken and Poloniex exchanges, leaving the state’s
market wide open to remaining players.
One of the company’s doubling down into this monumental
evolution is digital currency and mcommerce services facilitator Alternet
Systems, Inc. (OTC: ALYI), whose wholly owned Alternet Payment Solutions
subsidiary has secured a strategic agreement with the global leader in digital
currency solutions, BitPay. The agreement with BitPay centers on providing B2B
payment methods for North American, Caribbean and Asia-Pacific clients who want
to do things like rapidly and seamlessly convert digital currencies and fiat
currencies back and forth. Alternet Systems is also continuing to aggressively
pursue a New York state BitLicense and develop into one of the world’s top
digital currency exchanges via the company’s wholly owned OneMarket subsidiary.
Add to these vectors Alternet Systems’ move to address the
need for a comprehensive debit/credit card solution in the digital currency
space, via its launch of the first U.S. based Bitcoin debit card, and you have
a compelling model for success in this arena. Acting through a formal agreement
with Wildcard Consulting, which will handle product development, technical
integration and commercial deployment, the debit card element of Alternet
Systems’ strategy is particularly interesting, given that it will be the first
platform able to rapidly allow for digital and fiat currencies to be readily
exchanged through already accepted mechanisms, providing a ramping strategy for
immediate and ubiquitous proliferation across the retail spectrum.
Because this platform enables all vendors to accept digital
currencies and get paid immediately in USD or any other currency they wish, it
eliminates one of the last remaining barriers that have hindered digital
currencies like Bitcoin from going supernova. The long-term implications for
Alternet Payment Solutions and mcommerce are profound indeed, and investors
should keep a close eye on ALYI, as it is a triple threat which is clearly
serious about leaping over any and every regulatory hurdle that crops up in
coming months and years, in order to secure a big slice of the mcommerce and
digital currency pie for its shareholders.
Take a closer look at Alternet Systems by visiting
www.alternetsystems.com
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