A new payments system have launched riding the wave of GDPR news and promising security and privacy by virtue of blockchain technlogy. The Nuggets app is now available to Alpha testers on the iPhone and promises that you will be able to make payments with nothing other than biometrics to log in. Android support will follow.
“Using blockchain technology, we’ve developed a platform that will revolutionise the way we store personal data and make transactions online. Nuggets is all about giving consumers the chance to take back control of their data. Our alpha offers the chance to become one of the very first people to do so.”
– Alastair Johnson, CEO and Co-founder, Nuggets
Nuggets claim to privacy and security is that your data is never shared with retailers, unless you choose to reveal certain information, so there’s no chance of it being compromised. Even further, as your data is stored in the blockchain, not even Nuggets themselves can access your data and it’s pretty impossible for a hacker to breach a database that doesn’t exist.
Currently, users on the Alpha programme can test the onboarding process, experiment with the login feature and provide feedback. The bigger challenge will come when payments are fully enabled as it will largely depend upon retailers willingness to accept them.
As with all blockchain solutions from Bitcoin down, there are hardly any retailers that will accept them because there simply isn’t widespread consumer acceptance and usage. Outside the technology arena, if you speak to the average man or woman in the street and ask them what Bitcoin is you’ll be met with a blank stare and they’ll say something about virtual currency or cryptocurrency but that’s all they’ll know. They won’t have an account, they won’t own any currency based on blockchain and if they did they wouldn’t know where to spend it.
While Nuggets will have an uphill struggle to gain widespread consumer acceptance, there’s little doubt that blockchain will become increasingly important, not only in the payments field but also in applications as varying as retail and distribution. It may be many years before it spills over from the technology field to consumers but Nuggets appear well placed through the convenience of their app based solution, if they can convince consumer and retailers to get onboard.
