Can someone explain the merchant count?
32,000 a year ago, now 79 and counting?
32,000 a year ago, now 79 and counting?
As the websites you refer to are not initiatives of the LEOcoin Foundation, I have asked around.
The first website from Spring 2015 is a place for merchants to pre-register and start a KYC procedure in order to qualify. According to my latest information, this project was put on hold for a while and now had a soft restart in the second website (Summer 2016), where qualified registered merchants actually can offer products and services.
I have no possibility to check the actual amount of fully qualified pre-registered merchants, but it will be 5 digits. So the 79 is just the few that have started enfolding activities. I assume it is up to LEO Ltd. and LEO members to get the merchant platform moving ahead.
As LEOcoin Foundation, we do regularly speak with merchants and business owners and encourage them to accept LEOcoin payments, but as we as Foundation do not employ commercial activities, it is up to business owners to start an initiative themselves or to join that of third parties, like the websites you refer too.
This said, we do think that having merchants accepting LEOcoin payments and/or operating ATMs will certainly be beneficial for the LEOcoin ecosystem and for this reason are currently looking at the kind of promotion we can do - or support - to let the number of active merchants rise, then, as they say: the more, the merrier.
In this regard, I wish to point at the LEOcoin debit card initiative. When the card will be issued, LEOcoin owners that have applied for and received the LEOcoin debit card can use it to pay all merchants that accept credit cards.
