If you want a new technology to succeed, getting the adult entertainment industry onboard as early adopters is never a bad thing. Cyprus-based blockchain company Decentralized Vision ended the private sale of its PumaPay project after raising $117 million. The token generation event produced a total of 78,042,956,829 PMA tokens. PumaPay is a PullPayment Protocol created to bring cryptocurrency payments to daily life, and 30 adult entertainment companies have already committed to using the token. Essentially, the protocol reverses how transactions usually work by enabling merchants to pull funds from their customers’ account. Decentralized Vision claims that this mechanism avoids high transaction costs and reduces the insecurity of chargebacks (reverse transactions) and associated fines. That’s significant, because the PumaPay Protocol supports payment practices that have been difficult to achieve on the blockchain, including recurring payments with fixed and variable amounts, pay-per-use transactions, restricted and split payments, and more — transactions that merchants are used to having available with credit cards. “We are very proud and happy to have raised this amount of $117 million, leading us to generating 78,042,956,829 PMA tokens,” PumaPay CEO Yoav Dror said. “This will help us finish the development of our PullPayment Protocol, PumaPay wallets, the PumaPay Pride, and other innovative components to achieve our vision and values. It gives us the resources to expand our ecosystem, bringing more companies to adapt the protocol at this early stage.” In addition to a successful fundraising campaign, PumaPay announced that it has signed partnerships with more than 40 companies, which combined have over $10 billion in transactions per year. “It is also a great honor [that] so many companies have committed to adapting the protocol from the onset, introducing PMA as a payment method and creating a strong foundation for the PumaPay economy,” Dror said. PumaPay’s collaborations include 30 adult entertainment companies, such as Vivid Entertainment, ImLive, AEBN, and others. Businesses from other industries, including Fashion TV, CCBill, Rent24, Backpack.io, and ExposeBox, have also committed to the platform. Sign up for to start your week with VB's top funding stories.
Cyprus-based blockchain firm Decentralized Vision has raised $117m following a private token sale for its PumaPay transaction processor. PumaPay’s PullPayment Protocol reverses the usual transaction mechanism by enabling sellers to “pull” funds from a customer’s account, a system it says reduces the costs and chargebacks associated with traditional banking methods. The company has signed deals with 40 companies, 30 of which are adult entertainment firms.