Metal believes that peer-to-peer payment networks deserve sleek applications to accelerate the mainstream adoption of said payment networks. Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to Metal, are important technologies that are difficult to interface with and could benefit from complementary applications bridging the divide between Bitcoin and the average consumer.

For this reason, the Metal team aims to build a pristine peer-to-peer cryptocurrency payment processing application for crypto users of all varieties; Metal’s target demographic is everyone from sophisticated individual investors to low-tech merchant retailers.

Today, Metal has over $160 Million of AUM and 200,000 Registered Users, generates $16 Million in transaction volume and employs over 50 full time employees.

Metal rewards users with free MTL tokens for spending cash or converting fiat into cryptocurrency (up to 5%) and when they hold their MTL. Metal Pay users pay substantially less fees when buying other cryptocurrencies if they also hold MTL, with 0% fees offered to anyone who holds 10,000 MTL. On the Metal X exchange, users can reduce their fees by paying the fee in MTL. Additionally, users can receive loyalty benefits for holding MTL inside the exchange. MTL is currently a cryptocurrency token that operates on the Ethereum platform and is available on the native Metal blockchain: Proton.

Metal’s payment app includes real-time payment invoicing and full peer-to-peer value transfer in the same style as Venmo or PayPal. Metal uses the public Ethereum blockchain. Metal aims to be blockchain agnostic and recognizes the need for multiple cryptocurrencies. If cryptocurrency adoption is to take off it must utilize multiple blockchains. For example, many users wish to see the currency in terms of United States Dollars or Euros. For this reason Metal is using financial instruments that will offer stability. Metal recognized the need for Interoperability and Metal will use inter-blockchain exchanges to transfer between multiple cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets.

Meanwhile, loyalty-based tokens that merchants can create will be on the Ethereum network as well as MTL the token. Metal also recognizes the need for privacy-based tokens like DASH, Monero and Zcash, which will also be supported. Bitcoin is the underlying currency powering all transactions and purchases. However, this may change at a later time with sufficient volume to switch to MTL, Ethereum or something different entirely.

Metal also implements a Proof-of-Processed-Payments (PoPP). Proof-of-Processed-Payments (PoPP) acts as a provable way of identifying users and distributing new currency into the system. At the same time, it rewards users who convert fiat currency into cryptocurrency. For this identity-based, volume-dependent distribution network, Metal first identifies a user through a social security number or passport ID with identification software. Second, Metal gets a photograph on file, either a selfie or picture of identifying documents. Third, Metal can link a credit or debit card number in preparation for processing a payment. If no credit/debit card is available, a user can sign up with only an email address and invoice credit/debit/ach accounts into cryptocurrency. Provided all data points check out and the registered name on the identification matches the name on the credit or debit card, Metal initiates a payment using proprietary anti-money-laundering (AML) and anti-fraud technology. The payment typically declines or accepts in under one minute. The pending payment notification shows on the transaction list for the receiver of funds. When the payment is completely settled and the bank transfer or cryptocurrency issued, a portion of the gross amount of the payment is returned in METAL tokens. This is 5% of the volume of the transaction at trading value for MTL in either direction (sender/receiver). As an example, $100 in MTL is sent. It is trading $1/MTL. Both sender and receiver would both receive 5 MTL.

In order to join and participate in the network, actors need to be known and have their identity established. Metal use’s proprietary anti-money-laundering and anti-fraud technology. This is done to onboard these otherwise high risk actors into the financial system and begin using a cryptocurrency and blockchain payments platform for their business requirements.