Alex Agut on ‘Hashing It Out’ Episode 22: HandCash enables new business models with nanopayments

While I was attending AIBC Dubai in March, I had the opportunity to catch up in person with Alex Agut, CEO of HandCash, for the first time in several years. Agut is one of the trailblazers in the BSV blockchain ecosystem, constantly pushing the boundaries of peer-to-peer payment capabilities using blockchain technology.

“HandCash is a very easy to use Bitcoin Wallet, which allows users to connect to apps and games and the cool thing is that it allows to spend and earn money directly without having to deal with complicated addresses or scan QR codes,” Agut shared.

For those who have dabbled in the digital currency wallet scene, you are likely familiar with the dreaded 12-word seed phrase, something that was a “no go” for HandCash, according to Agut.

“We had to find a solution while remaining non-custodial and it’s something that satisfies both sides,” he confirmed.

“All of the payments are instant, super cheap and the best of it is that everything’s super reliable in the network and it allows us to outsource this technology to companies. These companies really rely on us having a great uptime and being always available and always working. And that’s what the BSV blockchain provide to us,” Agut added. 

Micropayments, or “nanopayments” as HandCash prefers to call them, represent payments under $1 and at scale, can bring untapped potential to new business models.

“They’re great because for one particular reason is that they provide you with an extra revenue stream that you may never have had before,” said Agut.

A classic example of how nanopayments can be utilized is when you see a New York Times article trending on Twitter, but when you visit the site, you cannot read the article unless you have a $10 monthly subscription.

“What if the New York Times added something like HandCash and you could pay just 20 cents and read the article? They would not be leaving money on the table and users would maybe grow into getting a subscription because they’ve seen that the premium content is worth it after paying for it a few times,” Agut pointed out.

Agut mentioned new business models utilizing nanopayments such as Haste Arcade’s “Instant Leaderboard Payout” (ILP) and pointed out how this payment capability creates revenue streams which were not possible before. 

Haste Arcade is an app within the HandCash ecosystem and therefore a lot of friction from payments has been removed- its peer to peer and instant. Peergame, a popular BSV-powered online casino, is another example of an app that is part of the HandCash ecosystem.

“With HandCash, you can just connect to any of these casino apps like Peergame. [HandCash] allows you to spend right when you need it instead of having to deposit your money into many different services. So you have all the money always in HandCash and you just pay for everything you need instantly,” Agut revealed.

“With Bitcoin, we allow to peer-to-peer payments. So it’s the user paying the casino directly. You don’t have any intermediaries, and that’s pretty cool because it removes a lot of friction, it removes a lot of headaches. And most of all, it removes a lot of cost,” he added.

The instant payout capabilities HandCash facilitates have the potential to change the way we entertain ourselves and do business. With YouTube or Patreon, content creators are only paid once they hit a certain threshold and the platform will take a significant percent of the revenue. 

With HandCash—or apps that run on the BSV blockchain—you can get paid immediately, straight from users or your audience.

“You can reinvest immediately with a marketing campaign also paid in BSV to reach more audience, so they pay you more, so you then reinvest more. This is something that you can only create with BSV at this time, and we have a few applications that are doing this,” Agut revealed. 

“It’s great because you are reinvesting live into your growth and that’s great for businesses and this is a business proposition that goes beyond crypto and you can convince any company to actually buy into this concept,” he added.

It’s important to mention you don’t have to be a digital currency or Bitcoin enthusiast to enjoy HandCash. It’s possible to top up funds in your HandCash wallet with a fiat credit or debit card and according to Agut, this feature has been very popular with HandCash users.

“We see that there’s a huge demand for it. And the cool thing is that it solves a big problem for us, which was that we were onboarding people, but if they didn’t get BSV from a friend or something, it was very hard to get started. So this closes the loop,” he said.

“People can just get started with HandCash, top up five bucks without KYC or whatever and get started using Peergame in about two minutes,” Agut added.