SINGAPORE AUGUST 25TH, 2020 / EMURGO Ptd. Ltd. – EMURGO, a global blockchain solutions provider & a founding entity of the Cardano protocol, announces today a strategic partnership with Bidali – a Canadian payment processor that offers next generation digital currency payment solutions. The partnership enables ADA holders to directly purchase items from more than 1,200 major retail brands, such as Amazon, Nike, Starbucks, Airbnb, and many more via Bidali’s online gift card platform.
Through Bidali’s gift card site giftcards.bidali.com, as well as partner ecosystems which include a variety of wallets and exchanges, ADA users are able to purchase name-brand retail gift cards to use in a desired region with their ADA at an equivalent fiat value. In line with EMURGO’s objective to drive global Cardano ADA adoption, this strategic partnership offers another real world, commercial use case for ADA and further increases its liquidity. This news comes just a few weeks after EMURGO announced another partnership with OTA Travala, enabling users to book over 2 million accommodations worldwide using ADA as well.
Gift cards have proven to be a popular item for consumers to purchase due to their simplicity, but this advantage has also made them vulnerable to scammers and a range of fraudulent activities. In the U.S. alone, consumers spent approximately $160 billion on gift cards in 2018. [1] However, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), $78 million had been reported lost due to gift card scams in 2018, and more in 2019. [2]
(Source: giftcards.bidali.com)
Bidali aims to address this problem by leveraging the unique properties of blockchain technology to prevent fraudulent double spending in a standard, verifiable, and tamper-proof way. This partnership will add further value to the crypto-community by demonstrating real utility, as well as bring more users to Bidali’s platform.
“EMURGO is delighted to increase the real world utility of Cardano ADA and give ADA holders the option to purchase products from a wide spectrum of some of the world’s most well-known brands. We are happy to support Bidali and platforms adding to the Cardano ecosystem with our resources,” said EMURGO CEO Ken Kodama.
“Cardano is a very promising project. As we’ve seen blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies develop, Cardano is third generation technology that is now finally getting us closer to the performance, scalability, and cost effectiveness required to bring the benefits of cryptocurrency to the mainstream and begin to solve some very large global problems. We’re very excited to be applying this towards the gift card space where fraud and lack of traceability are huge problems,” said Bidali VP of Growth Erik Ashdown.
Sources:
[2] https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2019/prevent-gift-card-fraud.html
About EMURGO
EMURGO is a global blockchain technology company providing solutions for developers, startups, enterprises and governments. EMURGO develops enterprise-grade applications, builds developer tools, invests in startups, and provides blockchain education.
EMURGO has offices and manages projects in Singapore, Japan, the USA, India, and Indonesia. EMURGO is a founding member of the Cardano protocol. To connect and learn more, visit https://emurgo.io.
For further information from EMURGO
Florian Bohnert
Chief Marketing Officer
florian@emurgo.io
+65 8648 1576
About Bidali
Bidali is a payments company providing infrastructure that bridges the gap between traditional finance and the next generation of money. Headquartered in Calgary, Canada, their proprietary blockchain payments technology saves consumers money and helps businesses increase sales, reduce fees, and eliminate fraud with next generation payments and gift cards.
For further information from Bidali
Erik Ashdown
Vice President
press@bidali.com
