Just three months after announcing its Bitcoin rival MintChip, The Royal Canadian Mint has shut its cloud-based digital currency and is looking to offload the business.
The Mint unveiled plans for MintChip in 2012, promising to bring the benefits of cash into the digital age, providing users with instant, private, secure, and fee-free access to their money.
The system would have enabled Canadians to use a ‘chip’ to load value onto a device such as a smartphone, PC, tablet, or store it in the cloud, and then buy physical goods in the real world or digital content online.
Just two months ago vendor SecureKey was brought on board to provide device-based multi-factor user authentication technology. POS terminal giant Ingenico has also been involved in the project, designing a proof-of-concept that will let people make in-store payments using the currency.
Yet Mint spokeswoman Christine Aquino has told the Wall Street Journal that plans have
The Royal Canadian Mint has pulled the plug on its MintChip cloud-based digital currency
“matured” and a natural next step would be to hand over the currency to the private sector.
“The Mint is currently working with the Department of Finance to explore divestiture options. The Mint is also in the process of completing development of MintChip to package the assets for divestiture,” says Aquino.
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