Why PDX Coin Could Impact Small Businesses

WHY PDX COIN COULD IMPACT SMALL BUSINESSES

A few short years ago, “cryptocurrencies” and “blockchain” were buzzwords that meant little to the average internet user. What tech enthusiasts and early crypto adopters pushed as the future of finance was considered a nerd’s fad by many.

Yet, in 2017, everything changed almost instantaneously. The price of Bitcoin, the pioneering cryptocoin, swelled to an all-time high of $20,000, resulting in a strong uptrend for itself, as well as emerging players like Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin. As the financial world soon figured out, cryptocurrencies had the potential to disrupt entire industries.

Today, cryptocurrencies are rapidly emerging from tech obscurity and becoming mainstream. According to Statista, the cumulative market capitalization of cryptos stood at a staggering $237 billion by the end of 2019, despite a relatively shaky two years. They may be new in the financial realm, but cryptocurrencies have already proven to be an enduring part of the ecosystem.

If you are a small business owner, therefore, it pays to start thinking about embracing these new financial instruments. Sure, cryptos are far from surpassing fiat currencies as the preferred mode of payment on a global scale. Still, fitting cryptos into your processes now could give you a valuable competitive advantage over your rivals in the future.

Cryptocurrencies for Small Businesses: What You Need to Know

The best way to think about cryptos is as a contract between you and your customer. Cryptocurrencies represent tacit agreements to conduct transactions in the same way that fiat currencies represent the inherent promise of governments to uphold payments. What is most appealing, however, is that cryptocoins are not issued or controlled by centralized financial institutions.

A company can create its binding contract, and as long as it reaches an agreement with its clients to uphold it, it can execute transactions without any third-party facilitation. Moreover, since cryptocurrencies exist on a decentralized, peer-to-peer ledger called the blockchain, all transfers are recorded for all participants of the trade to see, eliminating the need for an external authority to guarantee fair practice.

Introducing PDX Coin to Small Businesses

PDX is a cryptocurrency that is at the core of a powerful new banking and financial services ecosystem based on encrypted and permissionless peer-to-peer (i.e. no middleman) payments and money transfers.

PDX coin presents unique opportunities for small businesses to reduce operating costs and grow their margins. Its decentralized nature makes it possible to exchange value without the complications of intermediaries like banks and governments, and the underlying technology, that is, blockchain, ensures secure and transparent transactions.

Below are five ways that PDX coin could impact your small business today.

1. Cheaper Transactions

PDX is based on peer-to-peer payment solutions that do not rely on a bank to move funds from one party to the next. Therefore, although it is typical among cryptocurrency exchanges to charge the so-called “maker” and “taker” fees, along with occasional deposit and withdrawal fees, businesses that accept PDX coins are not subject to the litany of banking fees associated with fiat currencies.

Small businesses are often sensitive to slight differences in cost. With PDX, they can receive payments from online customers without worrying about account maintenance or minimum balance costs, overdraft charges, returned deposit fees, and many others.

Additionally, the PDX team is developing a proprietary crypto-to-fiat payments app that interfaces with both merchant point-of-sale terminals, physical and online, as well as a consumer's digital wallet.

The core technology platform has already been developed. It will be the key payments portal for PDX Coin, obviously, but will also accept a limited number of other larger and highly liquid cryptocurrencies such as BTC and ETH, as well as a couple of stable coins.

PDX will offer simplicity and ease of use for the consumer - no more difficult than paying with cash or a visa card is today. For the merchant PDX offers a host of benefits:

• Transactions are instantly verified and confirmed through the blockchain. No chargebacks.
• No more waiting 3 days to be confirmed and paid.
• Elimination or at least significant reduction of fraud.
• Merchant gets instantly settled in whatever currency they choose.
• Interchange fees reduced from 3 or 4%, to no more than 1%.
• Peer-to-peer - all the middlemen are gone, except PDX’s bank, which is there for less than 30 seconds.

Over time, and for obvious reasons, this will take off in a big way, and it’s a "Visa-killer". The merchant software PDX’s team is developing will help this process and turn it into a trend. On the merchant's end of any transaction, the PDX payments app will be embedded into their existing POS terminals.

They won't need new hardware. The consumer will go to the store, point their phone-enabled wallet's QR code at the POS terminal, and the transaction is completed and instantly confirmed. Simple. And the merchant won't even necessarily "know" they are being paid in crypto, because PDX’s banking platform will instantly convert the crypto used in the transaction to whatever other currency the merchant prefers.

For the consumer, the PDX payments app is embedded in their wallet, and is simple and easy to use. All they have to do is point it at a POS terminal in a store, or transmit their QR code online. Voila - bill paid or purchase confirmed!

2. Data Privacy and Confidentiality

Since the advent of e-commerce in the late 90s, credit cards have been the primary mode of payment online. By providing a solution that does not require a buyer to be physically present to pay for goods and services, credit cards have enabled businesses to engage with customers across geographical barriers.

That said, these flexible payment solutions have faced significant drawbacks over the years, chief among them being data breaches. When a customer makes a credit card payment, their card information is seen by the seller, the acquiring bank, the credit card service, and the issuer, all of which present separate chances for malicious persons to take sensitive information. With PDX Coin, transactions are done in near real-time, moving from buyer to seller with no stopovers. Furthermore, only the currency is transferred, leaving customer information safety in their custody.

Online customers tend to shy away from buying from small businesses that seemingly cannot guarantee data safety. With PDX Coin, merchants would be able to alleviate this worry effectively.

3. Reduced Third-Party Interference

Financial industry regulations are meant to protect buyers, sellers, and third-party service providers from risks. However, such policies can also be annoying bureaucratic bottlenecks for businesses.

PDX Coin gives buyers and sellers complete control over the funds in their wallets. Every activity on the PDX network is governed by mutual consensus among participants rather than intermediaries, virtually eliminating the risk of a bank or regulator unilaterally freezing funds or closing an account. PDX system assures small businesses that their funds will be available to them whenever and wherever they need them.

Visa may be "everywhere you want to be," but it is not without restrictions. Many would-be buyers from around the world have very little access to cash or credit because of their current financial status.

PDX Coin, on the other hand, is borderless, which means it can be mined and exchanged all over the world. More than half the global population currently has access to the Internet, and that gives them all potential access to PDX coins. Additionally, parties in different countries can transact without the need for currency exchanges.

By accepting PDX coins, small businesses can open their products to a truly worldwide market that is free from the hazards and costs associated with third-party intermediaries.

5. Customer Reward Programs

According to Accenture Research, customers in loyalty programs generate between 12 and 18 percent more annual incremental revenue growth for their businesses than non-members. Moreover, 77 percent of all buyers are participants of at least one retail loyalty program,

The downsides of loyalty programs, however, are that they are costly to manage with current systems, and they provide customers little to no transparency and security. In the wake of multiple data misusing scandals, such as the Facebook case, buyers are increasingly becoming wary of sharing their data with businesses, a factor that threatens the effectiveness of loyalty programs.

PDX coin is based on the blockchain technology and, thus promises small businesses new ways to grow customer loyalty with their reward programs. A blockchain can implement a universal smart contract to govern the allocation of loyalty points after every transaction, reducing setup time and system management costs while fostering transparency, traceability, and data privacy.

Cryptocurrencies and the Small Businesses of the Future

Despite being the new kid on the financial block, cryptocurrencies have increasingly demonstrated their potential to disrupt economic processes on a global scale. Hundreds of thousands of businesses, including trendsetting corporate giants like Amazon and Microsoft, are currently accepting cryptos as means of payment directly or indirectly. Furthermore, as HSB estimates, at least one-third of U.S. small- and medium-sized businesses are allowing their customers to pay for goods and services with cryptocurrencies.

Admittedly, the crypto revolution is not without negative aspects. The volatility of cryptocoins and the largely unregulated blockchain environment are two of the most significant causes of distress among crypto users.

Thankfully, PDX has the backing of underlying tangible assets, that is, physical reserves of crude oil and natural gas, and other energy assets. It offers all of the advantages of blockchain-enabled digital currencies while providing a verifiable asset base to protect its value, stability and security as a medium of exchange.

So, it is inevitable that PDX will continue gaining more and more stability, and the small businesses that succeed in implementing PDX in their value propositions are bound to reap the benefits in the coming years.

As an entrepreneur, the sooner you understand how cryptos work, the better you will be prepared for today's rapidly evolving financial landscape.