2019: Hold onto your hats…
Hello! I hope you had a refreshing break, and are raring to go into 2019. We certainly are at Nuggets.
As Seema documented in her post, 2018 was an incredibly eventful and successful year for Nuggets. And that was just the start. We finished the year with some fantastic developments, including releasing product updates to enable card payments.
And we’re already off to a flying start to 2019 — just a couple of weeks in! As well as being nominated for ‘Blockchain Project of the Year’ at the FStech Awards, alongside established names like HSBC and Commerzbank, we also announced a fantastic new partnership with Lateral Payment Solutions.
We’ll be integrating with Latpay’s globally connected payment platform, to deliver our next generation technology to their merchants. This will mean merchants no longer have to store consumers’ personal data. It will also remove the need for usernames and passwords, and the need to store personal information with third parties.
This news has been picked up by global thought leaders including Julie Conroy, research director and fraud expert with Boston-based Aite Group. She wrote this about Nuggets in PaymentsSource this week:
“We’re seeing a number of blockchain-based experiments with identity management, although this is the first I’ve seen with a major merchant processor. Obviously, anything that can take sensitive data out of the merchant’s environment is good news, given the fact that most merchants need to view a possible data breach as a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if.’”
We’ll be announcing further exciting and meaningful global partnerships in the coming weeks and months, as we build out the product for global release. These new deals centre around both corporate and blockchain partners, focussing on real-world use cases that drive adoption.
We’re delighted to be working alongside fellow blockchain startups, but the corporate world is also key to our growth. Our innovative technology offers immense benefits for all sorts of companies, with huge customer bases, across a wide range of sectors.
Later in the year we’ll also be moving from Alpha to Beta, making the Nuggets app publicly available on a global scale.
With so much going on, we want to make sure you’re fully up to speed with all our latest developments. We’ll be sharing updates on Telegram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, and we’ll also be introducing a new monthly newsletter. This will be a snappy recap of everything that’s happened over the previous few weeks, plus a preview of upcoming events and announcements. Stay tuned for January’s edition in a few weeks’ time.
As exciting as 2018 was for Nuggets, 2019 is going to be even bigger. We’re going to be developing the platform further, announcing new partnerships, and expanding our reach.
The issues around data storage and breaches are getting worse by the day. As Gartner highlighted towards the end of last year, “for the first time, a sizeable group of consumers and employees are not willing to give up security, safety and peace of mind in exchange for convenience”. Unsurprisingly, we’re starting to see a shift in the way people think about data storage — a shift that’s perfectly timed to coincide with global release of our platform.
2019 is the tipping point. I can’t wait.
In more general terms, I also think this is set to be the biggest year for blockchain tech yet. Here are a few of my predictions for the year ahead:
- Funded self-sovereign decentralised digital identities
- Self-sovereign bank accounts
- Faster infrastructure (scalability, POS, sharding, etc)
- Connected blockchains and networks
- More connection to existing infrastructure
- The big players taking part in the evolution
- More and more partnerships between innovators and established brands
I also think we’ll see the implementation of more informed legislation this year, which will give the blockchain industry the certainty it needs. To date, regulatory bodies have been slow on issuing guidance in the cryptocurrency and blockchain arena. But 2019 will see them step up their efforts as they start to grasp the nuances of the many platforms being built.
So there’s a lot to look forward to, and exciting times ahead! We’ll keep you updated every step of the way. And thank you, as always, for your continued support and commitment. It really is invaluable.
