- Legal marijuana sales projected to exceed $20 billion within four years
- Federal banking restrictions make cannabis a cash business
- SING developing bitcoin-based payment solutions
Growing as much as 30 percent annually, legal marijuana sales in North America topped $6.7 billion last year and are projected to exceed $20.2 billion within four years (http://nnw.fm/I7R3k). That’s eye-popping growth by almost any measure. However, this new found avalanche of revenues is shunned by banks.
Most banks won’t touch cannabis cash, because marijuana is illegal under U.S. federal law and banks must comply with federal regulations to maintain good standing. Banks just don’t want to be in the middle of a federal government versus state’s rights issue and risk losing their charter to operate. Effectively, this makes legal cannabis a cash-only business.
An inconvenience for consumers, it’s an enormous problem for private marijuana growers and distributors, creating transactional obstructions within booming businesses. Transacting $20+ billion of business annually in cash is no easy task. Real complications come on the operational end of businesses. There are multiple obvious security risks to business owners and employees paid in cash. Then the headaches really expand when realizing that all operational expenses, like utility bills, are cash payments. Complications and penalties further ensue when paying federal employee-withholding taxes and business income taxes, where headaches turn into migraines.
This constriction in the marijuana money spigot may be solved by a bitcoin payment solution for the marijuana industry, providing a much-needed financial transaction option and allowing cannabis businesses to accept credit card payments without the cooperation of banks or the FDIC. SinglePoint, Inc. (OTC: SING) has announced just such an initiative to develop a bitcoin payment solution for the cannabis industry. SING has partnered with First Bitcoin Capital Corp., an industry-leading bitcoin and blockchain technology provider (http://nnw.fm/d1ewJ), to develop and distribute a viable payments solution targeted at “high-risk payment verticals including the cannabis industry” to “fill the payments gap that currently exists.”
Bitcoin, the world’s first and most recognized cryptocurrency, recently vaulted to new record highs above $4,000. Valued around seven dollars five years ago, the digital currency has quadrupled in value in 2017, jumping 40 percent in August alone (http://nnw.fm/e7ClN). Cryptocurrencies have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. The underlying blockchain technology of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has the potential to transform transactional business by transferring value anywhere around the world without the need of traditional intermediaries such as clearing firms or banks. The ability to transfer value solely through software could become a transformational breakthrough.
As part of a broad strategy to cement its position in the cannabis industry, SinglePoint has been actively providing corporate solutions to cannabis businesses through its SingleSeed subsidiary. Without actually touching the plant, SinglePoint profits from the booming marijuana markets by providing much-needed business solutions to growers and providers. Providing a payments solution to the projected $20+ billion marijuana markets would be a game changer. SING’s strategic joint venture partnership with First Bitcoin Capital Corp. may very well be the transformational breakthrough needed by the burgeoning marijuana industry.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.SinglePoint.com
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