My entry to 
Over the years, there has been a tremendous and appreciable evolution of the way business transactions take place between merchants. Financial transactions has gotten much more easier since the invention of computer which helps in the digitization of financial data and the internet that has facilitated electronic commercial activities (e-commerce) all around the world.
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Just think about how much the queues in bank counters have reduced in terms of customers coming to withdraw money and you would appreciate the advancement in the financial world. People embraced the e-transaction for it was quicker and convenient. I can stroll the banks on Sundays to withdraw using my ATM card, no hassles or issues of standing over the counter.
However, there is the need of man. Economics taught us that the needs of a man are "insatiable"; the more he has the more he wants. It has to be better!The e-transaction were ok but there were problems it faced:
• limited amount of bank transactions.
• the system was not secure and cybercriminals thrived
• lack of anonymity.
These problems had to be solved and this led to blockchain technology.
The Blockchain
Blockchain is a digital ledger in which transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly.
The blockchain had it's upsides
• digital currency had no counterfeit and so fraud was impossible.
• It is decentralized and this is makes it for any central authority to manipulate it.
The electronic systems used the pull technology: after a transaction the system withdraws the money from your the buyer's account and this can lead to fraud.
Blockchain solves this two problems by :
• pull technology, the buyer sends exact amount of what he has purchased.
• private keys which make up the address are provided to the user which gives him full control over his transactions.
Blockchain has been found to have some faults especially in financial transactions.
• payment processor are controlled by government and this defeats the whole concept of decentralized economy.
• transactions are way too slow even when compared to traditional electronic payment systems.
• low scalability
These problems plaguing the blockchain payment system had to be solved and GRAFT (link) figured it be soon rather than later.
Graft is an open decentralized, real time authorization and settlement and payment blockchain system that facilitates untraceable transactions between merchants and buyer's using their decentralized API and variety of tokens.
Graft aims to eliminate the problems faced by current blockchain payment system by:
[1] giving merchants the ability to accept cryptocurrency and token from customer without a third party
[2] providing to merchants a faster transaction time. No more ridiculous waits for hours.
[3] facilitation of transactions that are non decentralized. They achieve this using brokers.
[4] providing the merchants the avenue to integrate with software payment providers without learning to operate multiple wallets app.
• Super nodes: A decentralized API node that maintain real time authorization and settlement, establish calls between merchants and buyers and employ proof of work (PoW) and proof of stake(PoS).
• Service Brokers: protocol on a super node hosted by an operator to implement extra facilities not supported on the decentralized blockchain but still in demand.
• GRFT : This is the native cryptographic token supported by the blockchain for real time payments and authorization and transfer of funds.
•Graft Wallet App and Point of Sale(POS): The is a lite desktop, mobile and browser extension app that allows users of the GRAFT platform receive and transfer GRFT or other cryptocurrencies.
• Authorize: for transactions that the amount is undefined. Imagine going to a restaurant for a family dinner or night out an after ordering, and eating to heart's content, the bill becomes. The bill is not known before hand but when the waiter comes to be paid, he initiated the transaction and and you pay. The graft account is locked until transaction is settled.
•PreAuthorize: it is used periodic payments. The payer does not necessarily guarantee that at the end of the said transactions, the funds would be ready.
•Complete: The transaction is completed at prices prolly less than the auhorized amount.
• Exchange: GRFT can be swapped for other crypto currency
• Transfer: sending and receiving funds between Graft accounts . The transfer does not need the consent of the receiver.
• Schedule: setting a transaction to take place at a set date.
Mr. A travels alot toward the end of the month and that's about the time the cable subscription expires. He has kids at home who don't enjoy missing Nickelodeon channel. He can set a future transaction using the Graft chain to pay for the subscription at the end of the month.
GRAFT will change the blockchain payment industry in so many ways:
I do alot of banking errands for my aunt some over text counter and some are e-transactions. One thing they both have in common is delay. Confirmation of the transaction is most times not "instant" and this sometimes can be a problem. What if the deal was urgent? and the receiver needs the confirmation almost instantly?. This same problem with traditional payments plague the blockchain. Confirmation time is just too slow. What Graft will do is to ensure that these confirmation of transactions are less than 3seconds.
The super nodes on the network are always on and perform distributed authorization lock on the buyer's account and then sends response back to the client. Fees in Graft differs from the plastic card payment. In Graft only the merchant pay the transaction fees and these fees go to the AUTHORIZATION SAMPLES. These are basically super nodes that approve payments in real time. The essence of the authorization samples is to ensure that the buyer does not double spend. The phases of RTA are : AUTHORIZATION and SETTLEMENT.
Once a buyer makes the payment, Graft automatically locks the account temporarily until the transaction is settled. After the transaction, communication between the merchant and buyer are removed from the blockchain making it untraceable.
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That a blockchain can handle large processes simultaneously and in a short period of time is one of the main reason why users would adopt a particular blockchain platform. If it is going to take too long , then I'd rather not be a part of it. The traditional payments system (Visa) , processes 56000 transactions per scondand Bitcoin (BTC) just handles 7 transactions per second. Ratio of 8000 to 1. Other coins like ETHEREUM (15-20 transactions per second), CARDANO (5-7 transactions per second) , BTC cash (61 transactions per second). The cause of the problem is the time taken to create a block. BTC uses 10mins for block creation, Litecoin(LTC) is 2½ minutes. Graft will do better by reducing the block creation time to 2mins so that more blocks are created faster and these blocks handle more transactions.
The internet is technology that's still advancing and assuming that it's services are rid of flaws is an erroneous conclusion. Downtimes in networks led to the invention of offline transactions or the STORE AND FORWARD. When the connectivity is down, all transactions made at the terminal are processed and given fake approval pending when the network comes back up. Graft also offers to it's participants the offline transactions. Graft merchant point of sale (POS) application and single relay super node can process offline transactions in the event that the authorization samples cannot be reached or If the merchant decides to take the risk and move forward with deal.
The flexibility of a blockchain goes a long way in facilitating it's widespread use. Integration is a key factor in blockchain and Graft knows this. This is why Graft will ensure that multiple cryptocurrencies and local Fiat currency are supported on the platform. The GRFT will not be the only means of trade in the Graft platform. Graft offers to it's buyer's, best user experience; and to it's merchants , an instant and better conversion rate.
It is no lie that not everyone has come to accept the blockchain and crypto currency world. But there are people who still clamour for the high security and anonymity and decentralization and control that blockchain offers but still don't buy the idea of "digital currency". No problem! Graft takes care of this. Buyers can pay using any method of their choice which includes debit or credit card, and with the help of the service brokers(selected based on reputation, exchange rate and previous selection) the payment is converted to GRFT.
The merchant can also receive payments in other cryptocurrencies or Fiat. The brokers are also vital in this aspect. The broker(s) are also chosen based on some parameters to help facilitate the transaction. It should be noted that brokers are used when the blockchain does not support the transaction.
These brokers also the have the ability to alter the client code and create application of their own. The types of brokers are: Pay-in, Pay-out, Accept and Top-up.
In the vane of ensuring that merchants get the best out of this network, the Vchain is tool used. It is basically a Virtual Chain of stores, allowing merchants to interconnect and manage multiple wallets and points of sale. The merchant has the full access to the chain once the chain is created.
The Vchain is important to the merchant because it will enable the merchant transfer funds between multiple wallets without a transaction fee for as long as the wallet exists on the Sam virtual chain. The fees associated with the Vchain are for smart contracts and expansion of the Vchain (that is adding more POS or wallets).
Another benefit Graft offers to merchants is the ability for credit services to be provided and received. This brings us to the DECENTRALIZED CROWD FUNDED CREDIT CARDS.
This is a community that comprises of merchants , credit consumers , credit providers and merchants. Graft is giving them a platform to interact and trade. Anyone with the wallet application can be a consumer and if a participant has a large enough positive balance , he can provide services. POS application users or third party integrated POS can become a merchant.
• The provider sets parameters that the consumers must meet before the credit is transferred. The parameters range from : minimum payout, frequency, credit rates, maximum credit and identity elements.
• If the consumer meets the requirements and the identity providers confirm the identity elements provided by the consumer. The provider does not bother himself with the verification an this ensures the anonymity of the consumer.
• The consumer is not left out in the reward scheme of Graft. Every information provided has an incentive attached tonit.: REPUTATION SCORE. The more identity elements provided, the more the score. The score is useful in the even that the buyer wants to ascertain the reliability of the merchant.
A third benefit to the merchant is the merchant token. Graft merchant token is a smart contracts that allows creating private tokens that belongs solely to the owner.bit does not require any programming and allows the merchant implement vital business features with minimum efforts and low costs.
Finally, the application is light and any transaction is initiated by placing a remote API call to communicate with nodes. For a extensive functionality, control over privacy, anonymity,. And availability, merchants may run a single node or group of nodes.
Transactions on the blockchain requires utmost privacy. Although there are blockchain that offer incentives to it's participants for providing personal information but at the core , we all desire a private business transactions. I for one am of the opinion that the only thing connecting merchants and buyers should be the "medium of exchange". However, certain transactions will require that the person the buyers are to transfer funds to, is the actual person before they go ahead."It's just business , nothing personal".
#Graft digital identifty profile: This is an appoach by Graft to enable users add certain information to their wallets during a transaction. The merchant can provide certain information like (age, house adress, name) during a transaction just to ascertain a level of trust.
The privacy will be based on an already existing blockchain CRYPTONOTE.
Graft has a crypto technical center that provides users of the platform an all around the clock techincal advises on making proper business decisions and reopve glitches that may arise from a transaction. Funds can be lost on the network due to glitches on the network or fraud and Graft is willing to compensate customers and merchants if such cases should arise.
• Store Credits : There may be returns done on sales that are not covered by the merchant trade policy or did not use the original payment method. The store credit transforms it into exchanges. They do not have an expiry date.
• Loyalty Rewards: An incentive to customers to keep patronizing a particular store. The model for the reward can be on each purchase or a one-time thing. The choice is left to the store.
• Gift Certificate: the gift certificate can be sold at discount to attract customers. The certificate can be gotten online or in-store and can also be redeemed at any market place for Fiat currency or any other cryptocurrencies.
GRAFT is offering the world a chance to evolve the blockchain. The services hat are rendered by the Graft blockchain will go along way in bringing more business minded individuals on to the blockchain.
For more information on the Graft Network:
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