Stellar is Surging on SatoshiPay Acquisition Rumors, Is It Sustainable?
Following on from a generally quiet weekend, Stellar’s XLM continues a strong performance into Monday. This brings welcome relief to a project that had fallen sharply since last November when it was trading as high as 4,705 satoshis.
As of 08:00 GMT, XLM/BTC is trading at 0.0002678, up 25% from March 7th. During this time frame, 24-hour volume has increased by $77million, with Chinese exchange ZB.com currently accounting for the majority of the volume with its XLM/USDT pairing.
SatoshiPay Will Use Stellar’s XLM for Micropayment Solutions
On the 7th March, SatoshiPay announced details of a strategic partnership with German media outlet Börsenmedien AG. Both companies will collaborate to develop a micropayment solution. The proposal will allow users to purchase premium content, with a single click, on platforms owned by the publishing house.
In response to the news, SatoshiPay CEO, Meinhard Benn states:
“We are delighted to have gained Börsenmedien AG as a strategic partner that firmly believes in SatoshiPay’s vision — both, as an investor and as a content provider. The groups’ digital formats, such as videos, PDF downloads or e-books represent an ideal use case for our technology. We are looking forward to further develop our product in close collaboration with Börsenmedien’s editorial and product teams.”
Börsenmedien AG founder and CEO, Bernd Förtsch, discusses the intent behind the stake acquisition:
“[Currently] online content is either free and monetised through ads or charged for — in which case readers have to sign-up for a subscription or deal with paywalls. [But] there’s a gap in between: inexpensive content that can be purchased on a pay-per-article plan, without hassle. SatoshiPay’s nanopayment solution represents that missing link that fills the gap. We are excited about our stake in SatoshiPay, as well as the upcoming integration of their solution on our websites.”
Stellar Approval
The planned solution will utilize Stellar’s ledger to transfer payments from the user’s wallet to the publisher. Furthermore, this proposal will take full advantage of the low transactional costs of the network, and will also benefit from direct end to end transfer without a 3rd party intermediary.
Lisa Nestor, Director of Partnerships at Stellar commends the pairing in her most recent tweet:
She goes on to say:
“Enabling seamless micro-payments through a platform like SatoshiPay has tremendous value across industries and geographies. And enabling purchases of content is an obvious place to start. SatoshiPay continues to execute on their vision, signing on high-value partners like Börsenmedien AG. We are excited to see the company grow and continue to be a leader in the industry.”
Micropayments
The move by Börsenmedien AG to utilize micropayment solutions goes some way to addressing criticisms of cryptocurrency’s failure to integrate with everyday life. This represents a further development of the space, and a calculated move to capitalize on changing media consumption habits.