This REVOLUTIONIZES how we spend crypto - Plutus ($PLU)

So in this video, we're going to have one of the interviews that I'm very much looking forward to do because it covers one topic that I've been really been looking forward to, which is spending cryptocurrencies. So I got this. This is a test dummy card for Lutus. So you can take that out. It's a Visa debit card, which allows you to directly spend cryptocurrencies. If you guys know my story with this, this is something that I've really wanted to do for a long time to be able to directly spend crypto in any merchant store. And this almost became a reality in 2017 with the 10X card. Back in the day, I was gloating, almost wrote this article about it being able to spend crypto when I was traveling. And it actually saved my ass when I couldn't draw money from a bank. One of those crypto cards managed to do it. But unfortunately, it was brutally taken away from me. And now to this day, I don't really have a crypto debit card. So I'm actually really looking forward to getting one of these once it's released for Asian versions. So this is still a dummy, to be honest. They legally still can't activate this for me. But one of the reasons why also I think this is really worth talking about and covering is not just because they're a debit card that allows you to spend crypto. But one key difference here is that the crypto that is being stored is stored on my own wallet. That's crazy. So the crypto, it's like you can still store it in MetaMask or you can store it on the device, but on your own wallet with the keys that you generate yourself. So this is almost a step up from what we had previously, which are just cards, but the funds are custodied by the actual provider. Here, you still get to keep your keys. And on top of this as well, something that's also quite crazy is that if you're in the European Union, you get a European bank account. So your own current account and a swift card and for the cherry on top as well, they have a decentralized exchange where you exchange your cryptocurrencies to top up your account. It's like my mind was kind of actually blown away when I saw what they actually built up. So this is kind of partially the reason for this video, too. So in this video, we're going to have a quick overview. Like they gave me a test account to try out one of their accounts to see what the features are. And we also have an interview with the co-founder Jasper Tay. And we get to throw him a little bit about why he did this and also kind of the challenges and if there's any barriers to entry in the future. And to clear some confusion going forward as well, this is Plutus with the Pluton token PLU. And this is not the same as Plutus DeFi. I know there's quite a few Plutuses out there being the Greek god of wealth. I guess it's a very popular name for people. But anyways, I just want to clear that up. And also, with full disclosure going forward, I do hold Plutons. And also, I will be on the shortlist, like the one of the earliest to get this card once it's released in Asia. So anyways, that's what my part is. All right, so I get a sneak peek of everything because they sent me the dummy cards and the dummy app for testing. But if you're in the European Union, you basically get to order one of these cards and it will arrive and you'll get the whole account to use. I've been told that there is a wait list, though, because it's been sold out so far. But I would say, you know, if you're interested in one of these, definitely sign up ASAP to get one of these cards if you're based in the European Union for now. And obviously, it will come to Asia in the coming year. So what do you get? So you get this card, which is pretty cool. But the other cool thing here is you get the app. So I'll bring the app on the main screen right here. And we have a dummy account and we can kind of find out where Mr. Dummy has been spending their money. So basically, that test goes. Now, what's interesting about Plutus is on top, you have a current account, which is basically a banking account. And you can directly deposit funds to that. So this kind of works like a regular bank account. It has a sort code as an account number. You can transfer funds directly to it. And it functions like a bank account. And it's the same thing goes with the card as well. So the card, you can add information and you can add funds to it directly from your current account, just like how a bank account works. So in essence, it's kind of almost functions like a bank app. But with, of course, one key difference here, which is that you can click on the crypto section to jump over to the crypto side of things. So here I have on my ETH 0.01 ETH and also have Plutons, around four Plutons here for testing. So say, for example, I would just want to sell four Plutons for the fun sake of it and loading up the card. It will happen directly in the app. And you can click continue here. There's a rate. And then I'll try to find me a buyer using the decentralized exchange. So this is where the DEX part comes in. This is where I can start funding my account and doing that transaction to fund the card. It took around like 15 seconds. So I'll just cut this a little bit short. So anyways, I'll click proceed. Let's see if I can confirm this transaction. Being Ethereum, I'll take some gui as well. All right. So I'm hoping those go fast because right now Ethereum is pretty clogged up. And by the way, do you guys like my new phone case? Actually, my wife bought it. Regularly, I have a very geeky, nerdy one. But, you know, this one actually functions a lot better. Even though it's pink, I kind of like it right now. All right. So the transaction is complete. So it took around three minutes. It says transactions completed. You know, sell plutons for 24 quid if you're UK. So now if you switch over to the banking side, you can see that has entered my current account. So it's almost like a bank. You have a current account. It gets filled up in a current account. And then you can use that directly to fund the card. So let's say I throw 20 euros in there or not euros. Quit in there and done deal. Yeah, I think it's kind of cool overall that it's binding a bank account with crypto and you get to keep the crypto. I think you can see the giant smile on my face. It's almost like candy. I think I wouldn't have dreamed that this would have been possible in 2012. But here we are in 2020. And, well, that's what we get. Anyways, the next part of this video, we have an interview with the co-founder Jasper Tay. And he talks a little bit about kind of the inspiration behind it and the challenges that they were faced to create such a product. And we get to grill him a little bit about, you know, kind of all the features there as well. So I hope you can enjoy the rest of this interview. So we have Jasper Tay on here. It's his first time on this channel. And we're going to talk a little bit about the inspiration behind it and why he got into everything. So Jasper, welcome to the channel. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Hey, Michael. Thanks for the very kind intro. Yeah, sure. So I, well, obviously I'm a fintech entrepreneur, but come from a more, you know, formalized finance background. So I worked in high yield distressed debt for just the best part of 10 years. But the last five of it, I've been, you know, working alongside Danielle to build this amazing crypto neobank that will hopefully change the world of crypto payments everywhere. Awesome. So what got you inspired to do this in the first place? Well, why choose crypto and integrating that with a bank account? What's the inspiration for that? Yeah. So, you know, when, when Daniel and I first, you know, met each other, we were trying to solve the problem of how do I, you know, get this thing. Bitcoin and exchange it for, for goods. You know, like how, how does that transaction happen more easily? That's kind of the whole of everything, right? Like, get crypto being spent. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, let's give, let's give almost like give Bitcoin a use case, right? Right. Like, you spend it. So the first iteration was, okay, like, let's set up like this clunky POS, go around to all these different merchants and try to get them to accept it. But obviously that, that was, you know, putting it the wrong way around, like going the long way around to solve like the problem. So we, we came up with this idea of, of hacking the system as it were, and attaching a Visa card. And it's, as you can see, to, to a, to a crypto Dex, right? So you could exchange your crypto and spend it anywhere. And that was, that's, that's, that's really like the, the, the, the, you know, the, the inspiration behind Plutus is crypto everywhere. And the thing is, I mean, we've seen this before, right? Like we see multiple projects at launch. How does kind of Plutus make it different? So we, we call ourselves like better than a bank. We, we kind of use this, this, this slogan, but we really believe in it, right? Because we give you guys essentially bank-like services, right? So we issue you with, with IBAN sort code. You can transfer in and out fiat. But also we have this really cool component where you can, where you can link your MetaMask wallet, right? To, to, to, to sell Ether on there and spend essentially with, with crypto. We're not spending with crypto. You're, you're converting crypto into fiat and spending on the card. So it's about, it's combining this, this world of, of, of crypto, right? And owning your own keys with the traditional world of finance, which is something like really unique. So something I think quite interesting about this is you also get a bank sort code and a Swift number. So you're almost like function to, so how does that work? Did you work with a bank to be able to achieve this? Yeah. So we, so we work with a banking partner, which, which provides us the sort code IBAN and regulatory cover. I think that's where we're quite unique with regards to our products, because when you sign up to us, we immediately issue you with an account number and you can use that like as an everyday banking, you can transfer in and out of there. And also switch that balance onto, onto your Plutus debit card. Cause I wanted to interject there. So, so I think this is the difference here between what Plutus is offering and what everyone else is. And that's why I kind of, I'm actually interested in this because before previously I've used a lot of banking cards and services that would hold custody of my crypto. Right. I think this is something that like, um, eventually you, you don't want, this is the kind of the next iteration where I still keep full custody of that. And so explain me through the process. Like, so like I have this card, I have say like 10 EF. How would I go about going as buying the new iPhone with this card? Yeah. So like if, if you, if you fancy the new iPhone 12, right. And you go, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to go at lunchtime to, to buy the iPhone. You think, okay, I want to, I need to sell for ether. So you connect your MetaMask wallet, um, via, via mobile. You can connect it. You sell for, you put in an order to sell for ether on the decks. That, that order gets matched with a buyer of ether on the other side. Um, and the, and the fiat. So when the, when the blockchain tracker, um, recognizes that the transaction is being complete by you sending him ether, we release the fiat funds onto your bank account. And then you transfer that onto your card to spend. Got it. And that happens instantaneously. The original, the original idea behind Plutus, right. Was to, to integrate crypto with everyday life. Right. And that was, that was like the driving force behind everything we do. Right. Is to kind of cater for the guy who wants to sell, who's like earning ether, let's say. Right. And wants to sell it to go and fund his everyday lifestyle, go to Sainsbury's and shop, you know, go online on Amazon and buy, you know, his everyday household items. So we believe that by being part of the traditional banking infrastructure, right. We give you the tools to integrate that into part of your life. Right. That's, that's one. Right. To incentivize you to do it. Every time you spend, you're going to get back, um, a reward in crypto. Right. So you get 3% back every time you spend. Right. So this is like, this is a huge driver to make purchases cheaper for people. Right. Because, you know, everyone's struggling right now. Right. It's COVID, not a lot of people working. So that's, that's, that's another thing. The third thing is, um, you know, we have a bunch of, um, partners that we work with. Amazon, Nike, Lenovo, um, just to name a few. And every time you spend using one of these merchants via the Plutus platform, you get cash back onto your call. Right. Right. So we're kind of, we're kind of incentivizing people to use our products by using all these mechanisms. When you're giving it back, you're basically giving it back rewards in terms of the Pluton itself. Right. So can you tell me a little bit about the token use case and what you're trying to do there? Yeah, sure. So the token has several use cases. Um, firstly, it could be redeemed against, um, the Plutus premium service. Right. So, and that, and that has a cost of $9.99 a month. So, so right there, there's, there's, there's a huge, um, there's a huge benefit. Um, you can, you can swap that Pluton into card balance, right? I can sell that Pluton into fiat on the decks for free. Um, you can, you can stake that Pluton to unlock additional cash back. So, so we live in the real world and we don't ask you to stake like hundreds of thousands of Pluton in order to lock those rewards. Um, it's, it's, it's extremely manageable, right? Because we want everyone to be part of our infrastructure. And also it's, it's fungible in the sense that you can try, I can transfer it to you, um, without restrictions. Right. So those are like, those are some of the use cases. And did you face any regulatory hurdles? I mean, I think this is the biggest issue. Um, and especially for me, I'm quite careful about, cause like in the past, right. Um, cards got revoked, you know, like people, um, couldn't get it. Did you face any regulatory issues building such a product? Yeah, we did. Um, because we were so early into crypto, you know, we, we, we kind of, it's almost like this, this example that I like to give of like, you know, you having like an older brother. Right. And, you know, so, so us being like the older brother, like lighting the way, like lighting the torch for the younger sibling to come through. Like we really feel like that sometimes because we're so such an early project. We had to really like forge through and like, and, and, and forge the path, right. For other people to come in. Um, and it's, and as part of that, we always had to be wider than white with regulatory, um, no restrictions. Um, so, so us as a company, we're, we're extremely, um, compliant, right. And we want to make sure that we, we tick all the boxes. Um, right. And that's, and that's very important. Then when you, when you carry a brand like Visa, um, you have to be extremely, um, extremely careful about AML, for example. Right. And we, we're always very hot on that. And so that's why we have, you know, crypto transaction monitoring, uh, and fiat transaction monitoring is part of our process. And also like we've seen, I mean, this is almost like running joke. Now we've seen cards being deactivated all the time. Now there was various competitors and this is the biggest disappointment for me in 2017, getting my 10 X and other cards deactivated. So, you know, how, how, what, what insurance do I have here? Like how, how would you overcome this? Well, I think I can't, I can't speak to our competitors, you know, like that have, that have died and they're still like alive. But, you know, I, I could say that I could say crypto card projects that aren't with us anymore, like, you know, clearly weren't doing, you know, the right thing in terms of like regulations. So what you, what you found in like, you know, the 2017, like crypto cowboy days, like a lot of companies were sending out multiple cards, for example, to the same, same person. Like, so they could beef up the limits. But, but what you, what you want to do is, is to, is to, if you're playing in traditional finance world, you need to play that with a, with a very, very clean hand. Right. And you have to be wider than white with regards to regulation. So that's something that we've always done at Pudus. Right. And I think that's why we're here for the long haul because we don't take shortcuts with things like this. Sorry. It sounds, it sounds very boring, but. But it's, it makes sense. It makes sense. I think for compliance, you have to be. So now let's talk a little bit about the Pluton as well. So this is a native currency for ecosystem. It's going to be used for a deck. So you're heading over to a token sale. What's, what's the kind of driving force behind it? Why do a token sale at this stage? So we, so token maintenance is extremely important. Right. And I think that in order to get, in order to get mass adoption, to Plutus, we need to get the token in more people's hands. Right. And the way to do that is, is really to like publicize the token and, and, and to do a sale. Because the more people who are educated about Pluton, the more people are going to use it. It's going to drive liquidity on the decks. It's going to drive more signups. And, and so, so right now, the, the, the, the, the driving force of this particular sale that we're doing on, on, on our own decks is to, to increase the amount of liquidity out there in the market. And also how about the community as well? It's like, where do you post most of your information? Medium and Telegram? Yeah. So all company announcements, um, are going out on, on our medium. Um, we also have a really strong community on, on Telegram and discord. So it'd be great if you guys check that out as well. Got it. So I think this session, I think it's, we learned a lot about the regulatory side. I think it's actually quite crazy how something like this is done. I'm very, very excited to see the Asian expansion as well, and to be able to try it out in the European zone. But if you guys are like, if you guys are in Europe and, um, especially if you're in the UK right now, I'll definitely say try to get one of these cards. I think, um, it was definitely something that was really great for me. I'm looking forward to reactivating the account and getting access to this as well in the future. And with that guys, thank you so much Jasper for coming on and I hope to see you and update, get an update from you very soon. Thanks man. Thank you.