Posted on

GRAFT Weekly Development Status Update October 29th, 2018

It’s been another hard working week for GRAFT devs, and here is another update on GRAFT development status.

RTA Alpha

A new major version update for the RTA Alpha supernode has been released to the private Alpha testing group. This release includes stabilized communication between supernodes as well as fixes for the bugs found during alpha testing. There were fixes in the logging subsystem, and also now we can collect application logs from all the nodes in alphanet using syslog. We’ve started collecting alpha testers’ feedback, which typically comes in a form of suggestions, issue reports, and even pull requests. Once the team and the alpha group are “OK” with the version, the supernodes will be released to the Public Alpha where everyone can test them to prepare for the actual supernode hosting after RTA Beta is launched on the mainnet. We even plan to provide “stimulus” RTA transactions on the Public Alpha so supernode owners can “feel” the real traffic and estimate their income. We will announce the specific Public Alpha release date later this week at the Malta Blockchain Summit.

Anti-ASIC Major Network Update

Last week GRAFT devs released a new version of GRAFT software for the upcoming major network update that will introduce a new version of the PoW hash algorithm which prevents ASIC mining. The major network update will apply a new variation of CryptoNight hash algorithm (CryptoNight V8 / CN variant 2) which is currently ASIC-resistant. The source code of the new version 1.5.1 can be downloaded from master. The Linux (both Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04) and Windows binaries are available for download from github.

The major network update (aka hard fork) in GRAFT mainnet is scheduled for Wednesday, October 31st at block 207,700. As a reminder, major network update means that if you are running a GRAFT network node (graftnoded) you must upgrade to the latest software before October 31st. If you haven’t done it yet, please do it within the next 48 hours, otherwise your node will be disconnected from the mainnet. Note that users of GRAFT mobile and desktop wallets are not affected by the hard fork and should not do anything.

Customer Facing Applications

Other developers are working on Payment Gateway, Exchange Broker, and Verifone Terminal App. During the last week, among other things, they have been working on generic status monitoring, advanced UI, advanced reporting, and consuming a new RTA API provided by the Payment Gateway. The next major tasks and milestones for this team are online payment implementation (integration with eCommerce platforms) and implementing additional cryptos as a method of payment (currently, GRFT and BTC can be processed by the payment gateway and exchange broker, and accepted at the payment terminal app). We will keep you posted on the development of those important features.

Decentralized Exchanges

We believe that decentralized exchanges are the future. Bisq is one of the true decentralized exchanges, and GRAFT trading is available there. Please let us know if you have any suggestions regarding decentralized exchanges listings.

Happy GRAFTing!

Posted on

GRAFT “Anti-ASIC” Major Network Update 1.5 on October 31, 2018

Last Updated: October 25, 2018

GRAFT developers just released a new version of GRAFT software for the upcoming major network update that will introduce a new variation of the PoW hash algorithm which prevents ASIC mining. Network hashrate is important, but it is not the only factor in blockchain security. The way this hash power is distributed between the miners is also important. ASICs break the balance and facilitate centralization (concentration of hash power) which can be dangerous for the network.

The major network update will apply a new variation of CryptoNight hash algorithm (CryptoNight V8 / CN variant 2) which is currently ASIC-resistant. The source code of the new version 1.5.1 can be downloaded from master. The Linux (both Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04) and Windows binaries are available for download from github.

The major network update (aka hard fork) in GRAFT mainnet is scheduled for Wednesday, October 31st at block 207,700 (block 194,130 in GRAFT testnet tomorrow, October 24, 2018).

The major network update means that if you are running the GRAFT network node (graftnoded) you must upgrade to the latest software before October 31st. If you do not upgrade your node before October 31st, it will be disconnected from the mainnet. Note that users of GRAFT mobile and desktop wallets are not affected by the hard fork and should not do anything – as long as they are still connected to the default proxy supernodes (if you are connected to your own supernode, do not forget to upgrade the underlying network node).

Posted on

GRAFT Weekly Development Status Update October 22nd, 2018

Hi everyone, this is our weekly update on GRAFT development activities. Last week we were focused on RTA alpha debugging and new release, exchange broker development, and payment gateway UI, while dealing with an “anti-ASIC” major network update. Let’s review the status of all these activities.

The new RTA alpha release with stabilized communication is ready, the only reason we did not release it to the alpha testers last week was the work on the hard fork patch, so the release will happen later this week. This RTA release is a close version of the upcoming beta release to the mainnet, with a few things still in development.

Before RTA beta, however, we are going to open the RTA alpha to the public, so everyone will be able to “touch” and try to break it while still in test mode (right now it is only available to the 50 alpha testers.) Once we get a “confirmation” from the RTA Public Alpha testers, we will release the beta to the mainnet. This way we can test the supernode network scalability in environment pretty close to the real world operations before it goes to full production.

While the core dev team was focused on RTA and the upcoming major network update, another team continued working on payment terminal apps, exchange broker, and payment gateway. More specifically, last week there were working on an enhanced GUI for exchange broker and payment gateway (as shown on the screenshot below). Since the payment gateway is aimed towards the less technical, more business operations oriented audience, the quality and functionality of the user interface is very important.

Also, the core team is working on a patch for the upcoming major network update that will introduce a new variation of the hash algorithm that prevents ASIC mining. Network hashrate is important, but it is not the only factor in blockchain security. The way this hash power is distributed between the miners is also important. ASICs break the balance and facilitate centralization (concentration of hash power) which can be dangerous for the network.

The patch will apply a new variation of CryptoNight hash algorithm (CryptoNight V8 / CN variant 2) which is currently ASIC-resistant. The patch is still being tested – thanks to the group of GRAFT miners’ who help with the testing. We will announce the hard fork block number and date once the testing is finished (probably tomorrow). As usual, we remind that the major network update (aka “hard fork”) is only relevant to the miners and other full node operators; if you use one of the GRAFT mobile or desktop wallet apps you don’t need to do anything.

Finally, please check out the questions and answers from our first official AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) session which took place last week. We tried to answer all the questions from the community, but if you don’t find an answer to your question in the list – don’t worry, we plan to conduct periodic (shooting for monthly) AMA sessions!

Happy GRAFTing!

Posted on

GRAFT Weekly Development Status Update October 15th, 2018

It’s been another hard working week for GRAFT devs, and here is our brief weekly update.

We are continuing work on debugging and improvement of the RTA communication protocol. During the last week we merged “blocking doubled RTA notifications” PR, fixed connection and white peer lists management, and did some internal debugging, merging, and testing. Also, we just finished creating a couple of diagnostics tools – an automated communication test framework and GraftnetExplorer (see the screenshots below).

The supernodes communicate to each other through “tunnels” which they build using the existing network of underlying cryptonodes. They use a special mechanism that allows creating a set of shortest and fastest tunnels. Currently, the protocol works but not in the most efficient way, so we are looking for weak spots and bugs. These diagnostic tools have already allowed us to find and fix a couple of bugs in communication between the supernodes. At some point we may release them to the alpha group (and then to the public as well).

As you can see on the GraftnetExplorer screenshot above, several supernodes in this dev network are interconnected, which means they can send each other instant notifications or broadcast messages to a larger group or even the entire network – all without knowing the IP addresses of other nodes, just by using their logical IDs. This is one of the major features (but not the only one) that differentiates the GRAFT supernodes from similar protocols such as Dash masternodes as it significantly enhances both the privacy and security of the GRAFT network.

The automated testing framework is another utility, recently developed by the team, that allows us to simulate various scenarios of communication between the supernodes and print the resulting diagnostics and statistics.

On the screenshot above you can see one of the results of the test run. There is a detailed backtrace located before the red line, while the next test is the same but without the details. 3 out of 4 the communication tests were successful, while one was failed (‘broadcast’, marked by letter ‘F’).

Another part of the team continues working on terminal apps, payment gateway, and exchange broker – optimizing the API, preparing for the production environment deployment, and developing reports. They are in the middle of the sprint, and the results will be reported next week.

Also, please check out a new version of the GRAFT white paper which now can be downloaded from the website. In this version, we have added recent proposals created since the previous white paper release, and summarized the changes in the original functionality. As the ideas initially set forth in the original GRAFT white paper gradually materialize, we need to make adjustments as we get deeper into the project. There are three areas of new or updated content in this version of the white paper:

And finally, the GRAFT Team will be hosting an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) live on Telegram and Discord on October 18th, at 12pm EDT, so if you have not submitted your questions yet please do so!

Happy GRAFTing!

Posted on

GRAFT Development Status Update October 8, 2018

It’s been a week since the previous dev status update, and, as we promised last time, we would like to keep our community posted weekly, so here is another update on GRAFT development status.

Last week we continued working on RTA implementation in several directions including fixing bugs discovered during alpha testing, implementing the full automated test suite, preparing a new supernode release, and continuing working on stability of the communication protocol. The fixes include the bugs in initial seed connection, p2p logging, and storing of p2p state data. The automated test suite is built on python-based test framework and will allow to automate the regression and other QA tests.

The new supernode release for alpha testers will be available later this week. In addition, we are finalizing the supernode plugin framework which will be used for plugging extra apps such as exchange brokers into the supernode.

Speaking of exchange brokers and other components of GRAFT network ecosystem, we almost finished developing a live demo that showcases the payment flow on a hardware payment terminal. One of the main goals of GRAFT project is bringing crypto payments into the physical world of brick-and-mortar stores. Unlike most other projects in the area of crypto payments, we realize that the shortest way to adoption by brick-and-mortar retailers and service providers is using their existing hardware payment terminals (aka “pinpads”), because these terminals are already integrated with various point of sale systems. While there are only a few major payment terminal brands, there are hundreds if not thousands of types of point of sale applications they are connected to.

Hardware payment terminals can be loaded with additional software such as GRAFT payment app, without requiring retailers to purchase, test, certify, and maintain a new hardware in their stores. But how to showcase such an app online if it’s designed to run on particular hardware? Our payment application emulator is the first version of such a showcase application that will allow the demonstration of altcoin acceptance on a Verifone terminal using GRAFT network. The initial version of the emulator (see the screenshot below) will be released later this week and available for anyone to try a Bitcoin/GRAFT payment.

From the last week’s events, it’s also important to mention the following two things. First, the incentives for RTA supernodes. Although this is not directly related to development process, the additional rewards will help boost the RTA network once it’s released to public beta on the mainnet. Second, the patch fixing the code execution vulnerability which was “silently” released last Monday. The fix for this denial of service vulnerability is merged into master under 1.4.5 and can be downloaded and built by anyone running GRAFT network nodes (please do not confuse it with the previous “burning bug” patch 1.4.4 for exchanges that was released a few days before the last one).

See you next week! Happy GRAFTing!

Posted on

GRAFT Development Status Update October 1st, 2018

We listened to our community and decided to publish development status updates more often (bi-weekly or even weekly). However, since one week cannot accommodate the same amount of news as one month, don’t expect to receive long updates anymore!

Here is a quick round up of the news since the previous dev update.

First Working Prototype of Bitcoin Pay-In Broker

We have completed the first working prototype of a Bitcoin Pay-In Broker, which allows merchants to accept Bitcoin at checkout (both in brick-and-mortar stores and online) using GRAFT mobile point of sale or hardware payment terminal apps. The buyer can pay with any wallet supporting Bitcoin, as designed in the original GRAFT white paper. This is a big milestone for the GRAFT project, along with the ongoing RTA alpha, as the main concept of GRAFT is supporting multiple cryptocurrencies as a method of payment for merchants and buyers.



Some time next week we will place a button on the web site that will allow anyone to try out this workflow on the live network with live brokers and payment gateway!

RTA Alpha

The Dev team is continuing working on RTA alpha issues. Currently, we are focused on communication stability and optimization of RTA communication. We still have several issues with tunnel construction (the base mechanism for RTA communication based on P2P network), and optimizing the amount of messages traveling between the nodes – to provide more lightweight and stable communication.

As a reminder, RTA alpha is closed release to a group of 50 alpha testers selected from the large community of volunteers. Not surprisingly, these people are going to be the first full supernode owners and operators, although we have a much larger group of future supernode owners waiting for the beta release. The plan is to release beta to the mainnet as soon as the alpha is stable and fully featured with the functionality required for RTA transaction processing.

By the way, we have some exciting news for supernode owners coming out this week – we’re formulating an incentive program to stimulate the supernode network as part of ramping up the GRAFT network as a whole. We believe we’ve come up with a very elegant solution for it. More details will be released soon.

“Burning bug” Patch

There was a bug found in CryptoNote wallet code, the full description of the issue can be found here. The short story is that the bug affected only exchanges and only the wallet – no implications for regular users, and no need (even for exchanges) to update the network node daemon. Since GRAFT is not a direct clone of Monero (unlike some other CryptoNote blockchains), it took some time to adjust the Monero patch to current GRAFT wallet code, which was eventually done successfully last week, and the patch was “silently” released to the exchanges. TradeOgre and STEX updated their wallets immediately and as usual, Cryptopia is behind schedule but communicated to us that they are working on the update and it will be ready “asap” (no ETA provided).

As a side note – such bugs and patches mean that some part of engineering resources had to be diverted, but the impact on RTA timelines should be minimal.

Stay tuned, happy GRAFTing!
Posted on

Engineering Update: Pay-in Broker and Payment Gateway Demo

While we’ve been focusing on stabilizing the Full Supernode based RTA (real-time authorizations), part of the team has been diligently working on the other components that are necessary to make the main GRAFT Network use case (paying with any digital currency with your favorite wallet) a reality – namely Payment Gateway and an Pay-in (aka Accept) Broker, and it’s time to show some progress!

Pay-in broker is a type of an exchange broker that provides alt-currency acceptance for the network. It’s a critical piece required to enable any digital currency acceptance at the POS with the wallets of user preference.

Payment Gateway provides a layer between the payment terminal and a network that’s meant to handle business logic and part of the remote wallet functionality.

Posted on

GRAFT Development Status Update September 2018

It’s time for another dev update! It’s no secret that RTAs (real time authorizations) remain the main focus for the GRAFT development team, so let’s start from the alpha review.

RTA Alpha

We are excited to announce that RTA transaction now works end to end for the entire sale workflow – it is stable, and takes just a couple of seconds to get approval on both wallet and point of sale as expected. There is still some work to be done before we move to beta release, and there are many ways to do even more improvements. But here is the most important thing: the first instant payment on a private CryptoNote blockchain is now a reality!

The RTA alpha release contains a full set of components necessary to conduct an end-to-end point of sale transaction in real time:

  • completely redesigned full supernode, i.e. the supernode that can participate in authorization sample and approve a GRAFT transaction in real time;
  • completely redesigned wallet and point-of-sale proxy supernodes, i.e. the supernodes that provides an “entry point” to the RTA network and participate in RTA transactions;
  • mobile and desktop wallet and point of sale apps for iOS and Mac OS X redesigned for RTA.

In addition, there is a special testing environment created for RTA alpha testing – alphanet – a dedicated testnet which contains several seed nodes, a miner, proxy supernode cluster with load balancer, and blockchain explorer.

We managed to assemble a very efficient and quite large team of alpha testers – 50+ active members who are able to run both RTA supernode and iOS/Mac clients (wallet, POS). In addition, we have selected an extra “reserve” group of volunteers (also 50+) that will be able to join the testing once it’s extended to the next phases – additional clients for Android/Windows and then beta release.

People familiar with development release cycle know that alpha releases are usually unstable and may lack some features. RTA alpha was not an exception. Once the RTA functionality was released to the alphanet, we discovered issues that we could not see during regular testing. We are able to simulate the real network very well because the alphanet consists of real participants running on different networks and different hardware or hardware abstractions, rather than artificially cloned nodes and supernodes. We really appreciate the patience and positive attitude of alpha testers team!

So it’s time to learn more about the RTA transaction flow, which you will be able to experience in retail stores soon! It is very simple – a couple of clicks (literally) in the wallet app and a couple of clicks at the point of sale app: Figure 1: GRAFT RTA Workflow Between Mobile Wallet and Point-of-sale Apps

Payment Gateway for Merchants and Service Providers

As recently described in the Fees and economics update post, one of the important profiles in GRAFT ecosystem is a Merchant Service Provider (MSP). An MSP’s role is to provide and support payment network services to the merchant, ensure the uptime of the network (usually referred to as Service Level agreement or SLA), provide and manage equipment (e.g. payment terminals), provide reporting, etc.

To enable an MSP to do this, another type of server is needed – one that would:

  • Manage the terminal’s configuration (including wallet address)
  • Handle the MSP specific fee economics for the MSP (an MSP could choose to handle tiers of service differently or charge different fees for different transaction amounts)
  • Maintain transaction reporting and analyyics for merchants

In theory, such payment gateway can be designed and implemented by a third party such as traditional payment processor that wants to add cryptocurrency payments to their portfolio of services. However, we decided to create a “reference implementation” to enable faster adoption rate as a part of our go-to-market strategy.
Since GRAFT is a decentralized payment network, the payment gateway is multi-tenant, multi-instance, open source app, and everyone can host their own payment gateway and become a service provider on the network.

Payment Gateway is this “fifth element” that is supposed to manage the GRAFT payment apps on hardware payment terminals and GRAFT ecommerce interfaces, and link them with the GRAFT supernodes. Since it has transaction visibility, it is considered part of merchant’s ‘back office’ applications. Figure 2: GRAFT Payment Gateway, Service Provider Dashboard Figure 3: GRAFT Payment Gateway, Merchant Dashboard

* Note: With GRAFT network, the merchant can be their own MSP, but would still require the functions of a Gateway in order to manage the terminals setup, reporting, etc.

Upcoming Dev Updates

We’re moving forward with every track on the development roadmap and even pulling some of them forward. An interesting upcoming project, which is currently in design and not even announced yet, is GRAFT ColdPay Supercard. This is a smart card that combines functionality of cold wallet, which can be used with mobile or desktop host app, and payment card, which can be used for making a payment at hardware payment terminals and mobile points of sale. More details about this exciting development will be unleashed very soon. Stay tuned, happy grafting!
Posted on

GRAFT Development Status Update June 2018

Supernodes and Real Time Authorizations

Let’s start from implementation of full supernode, which is essentially an implementation of real-time authorizations (RTA). Although we are close to the finish line, we do not release it yet to public alpha. We need more time for optimization, fine-tuning, and QA testing. One of the main reasons for the delay is an issue with communication. Unlike other two-layer cryptocurrency networks which use a separate mechanism for communication between their second-layer nodes, we reuse the existing peer-to-peer network as a basic transport. Our original algorithm finds the shortest and fastest routes between the supernonodes by maintaining a set of P2P tunnels through the network of cryptonodes. The main difference and greatest benefit of using the same communication base for two layers (both cryptonode and supernode networks) is not exposing the authorization sample’s supernodes – because in our design they are not required to have a public IP. Such design is the major difference and significant improvement comparing to other layer two implementations such as Dash masternodes.

Remember that one of GRAFT’s key differentiators and goals is absolute privacy initially provided by underlying CryptoNote blockchain protocol, which is the first layer of GRAFT platform. The fact that the auth sample supernode does not require a public IP attached to it makes GRAFT even more private and decentralized, because the supernodes are less dependant on regulated hosting providers. Without public IP the supernodes are “hidden” behind the large, distributed, and complex P2P network, which makes them less vulnerable to DDOS attacks. At the same time, the hosting and maintenance are less complicated and less expensive for supernode owners. (Note that wallet/POS proxy supernodes, which typically belong to service providers and large merchants, still require public IP address in order to be able to serve wallets and POS/payment apps).

However, such great benefits do not come for free. Along the way we found several issues in existing CryptoNote/Monero P2P communication implementation, which we are fixing in order to make it more efficient, stable, and suitable transport for our purposes. With that said, we anticipate the public alpha of supernode with RTA to be released by the end of July. Meanwhile, we will start a private alpha release for testing in a coupe of weeks, so if you are interested in helping us with preliminary testing please contact us at [email protected].

While working hard on RTA implementation and getting ready to its production launch, we realized that hosting a supernode, either full (authorization) or proxy/gateway, requires a special DevOps skill set, so we are working through making arrangements and building relationships to provide turnkey solutions to supernode owners and merchant service providers.

Payment Apps

We are continuously working on improving the Verifone terminal app so it will be fully polished for production by the time RTA is released. As Verifone have written on their merchant marketplace website, where GRAFT app is listed as the Featured Apps Partner, “Our app partners are working around the clock to help empower our merchants with applications that enrich the customer experience and provide business productivity.” This is absolutely true statement, there is not much to add. Since the Verifone certification was achieved last month, we have done several improvements such as UI redesign (in both terminal app and our wallet), enhanced configuration utility for merchants, integration with CoinMarketCap for real-time exchange rates, and some bug fixes. Also, we are working on Ingenico terminal app integration into their marketplace.

One of important and promising features we are planning to develop is using NFC (Near Field Communication) for initial engagement between the mobile wallet and terminal app, so instead of scanning QR code displayed on payment terminal the buyer will just wave the phone (the same technology is used by contactless payment cards and Apple Pay). Implementation of such a feature will help improve both buyer and merchant user experiences and reduce the overall transaction time. We will keep you posted about our progress in this area.

We just finished design and now are ready to start implementation of the payment gateway which will facilitate GRAFT payments on online shopping platforms. Once implemented, integration with GRAFT payment gateway, among other features, will bring to online merchants and buyers a unique combination of absolute privacy and instant transaction confirmations (using RTA) – something they have never seen before. Plus, after we finish RTA and move to accept broker implementation, they will be able to accept various cryptocurrencies, while keeping the same benefits of privacy and transaction speed.

Wallet Apps

We finally redesigned the app downloads page on our website, so now it’s easier to find all our apps, including wallets, and their releases for various mobile and desktop operating systems: iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. In recent wallet releases, we fixed some bugs and added new configuration options. The upcoming wallet release will support purchases with real time authorizations using full supernodes (currently it supports a limited version of RTA on testnet only).

CryptoFind App

As our app for discovering and listing crypto-friendly merchants is gaining more popularity among crypto enthusiasts, we periodically release new features and bug fixes. In recent CryptoFind version, in addition to bug fixes, we added a possibility to take a picture of the GRAFT sticker on the merchant’s window so the users can earn better bonuses.

Happy Grafting!

Posted on

New Element of GRAFT Ecosystem – Stable Value Payout Token

Designing Payout Tokens and Real Time Decentralized Exchange

As we’re working on the design and development of the features defined in the original GRAFT white paper, we are monitoring industry trends, listening to the community, and constantly looking for new ways to enhance and extend functionality of GRAFT network and its applications. Currently, we are in a process of refining several sections of the white paper, adding new features that will help GRAFT become an even more comfortable place for both merchants and buyers. In order to do that, we are designing two very important ingredients: a payout tokens and a real-time decentralized exchange. These two new features will enable optimal flow of funds, either crypto or fiat between GRAFT users on both sides of retail payment transaction. We will publish information about those new elements of GRAFT ecosystem in this blog, in two different posts, before it goes to the next version of the white paper. The first article below describes payout tokens, and the second one, which will be published soon, will describe real-time DEX using atomic swaps on network of GRAFT supernodes. The product roadmap will be also updated along with the publication of the updated white paper.

GRAFT Merchant Token Platform:

Introducing Payout Token

Although recent version of the GRAFT white paper provides pretty detailed definition of merchant token concept, it does not contain (yet) some important details which are described in this article. In addition, we introduce a concept of payout token – a special type of a merchant token that will be used to facilitate merchant payouts in local fiat currency. Before we move to payout token definition, let’s refresh our memories to recollect the concept of a GRAFT merchant token, which is a foundation of GRAFT payout token. Here is the definition from the GRAFT white paper:
In addition to fast and inexpensive transactions, merchants place high value on customer loyalty and branding. This functionality will be enabled by the token layer of the GRAFT currency. The token represents domain (merchant) specific GRAFT use, and offers smart contract-backed functionality like loyalty point accumulation and use, reward points, sale discounts, spending discounts, competitor discounts, coupons and store credit. Merchant token is a predefined smart contract that allows creating a private token that belongs to its owner. Unlike some other smart contracts and token platforms, creation of GRAFT merchant token does not require any programming and can be done by anyone.
Note that merchant tokens are not equivalent to “open” smart contracts: we do not try to build another Ethereum platform. Unlike Ethereum-like smart contracts that can be unpredictably customized through programming, flexibility of merchant tokens is limited to their necessary features, which makes them simple and inexpensive but powerful tool accessible to a merchant of any size – from individuals and small businesses to large retail chains. In addition, the main features of each particular merchant token type will be supported by supernode DAPI and GRAFT wallet and point of sale apps. Thus, those features are going to be available for merchants and buyers “out of the box”.

Stable Value

Since Graft tokens (GRFT) are tradable, when they are used for merchant payouts directly, volatility may become a problem. We cannot ignore the fact that many merchants would like to be able to accept cryptocurrencies but prefer to get paid in their local fiat currency. This is their reality: merchants still need to pay for restocking, utility bills, and employee salaries in fiat. At the same time, they don’t want to be involved in cryptocurrency exchange business, and they need to be isolated from the financial details of the crypto business. In order to finally fill the gap and connect the two worlds – cryptocurrency transactions and fiat currency merchant operations – we have created a concept of a payout token, which represents a local currency and can be transacted on GRAFT blockchain in real time using the supernode tier of the blockchain. Payout token is based on GRAFT merchant token technology, similar to gift, rewards, and other merchant token types.

Underwriting

The main goal for creating payout token is providing an easy and reliable way for merchants to get paid in stable local fiat currencies while avoiding usage of centralized payment processors. Payout tokens are issued and maintained by responsible token underwriters (such as banks). When someone (payout broker, for example) is buying payout tokens from the token underwriter, the company generates a necessary amount of tokens and transfers them to the buyer in exchange to an equivalent amount of fiat currency. When someone (merchant or payout broker on behalf of merchant) is selling payout tokens back to the token underwriter, the company destroys the tokens and pays an equivalent amount of local fiat currency to the seller. Thus, payout token is always backed by sufficient amount of fiat currency, and its price always remains the same and equals to the corresponding fiat currency float. For example, 100 USDG can be always bought or sold for US$100. Payout tokens will be issued by licensed token underwriters only in exchange to equal amounts of fiat currency. Furthermore, the rights to handle particular payout tokens can be delegated (licensed) to local commercial banks or even national governments. At this point, we’re open to partnership inquiries from financial institutions interested in underwriting payout tokens tied to the local currency. Please email info @ graft.network or contact us through other means if you represent an organization that wants to get involved.

Details

VChain name for all payout tokens is always “GRAFT”. Each payout token subtype matches a particular local fiat currency. For example, GRAFT.USDG token (ticker: USDG) matches US dollar. Payout Token Naming Format GRAFT.[Currency Ticker]G Examples:
GRAFT.USDG GRAFT.EURG
 

Vlog Version

Special shout-out to Jose D for making this wonderful video version of this important blog post, making our ramblings little easier to digest. Thanks Jose!!!