GLMall adds Athena Bitcoin as crypto payment provider on its blockchain marketplace

• GLOBRA is integrating Chicago-based Athena Bitcoin as a payment provider on GLMall, its blockchain-based e-commerce platform.
• The integration adds six crypto wallet options for buyers, which GLMall says it can offer free of charge.
• GLMall already uses its own zero-fee token, GMBT, and an escrow system that holds buyers' payments on the blockchain until an order is completed.

GLOBRA has announced that Athena Bitcoin, a crypto payments company based in Chicago, will become a payment provider on GLMall, GLOBRA's decentralized online marketplace.

The move gives GLMall shoppers six more ways to pay in cryptocurrency: Dash, Bitcoin, Horizon, Bitcoin Lightning, Bitcoin on chain and Chivo Wallet.

Athena Bitcoin was tasked with building El Salvador's Chivo wallet system.

It was also among the first crypto payment providers to help people without bank accounts in Central and South America shop online.

The company runs more than 250 ATMs where customers can buy and sell cryptocurrency with cash, across 13 US states as well as El Salvador, Argentina, Puerto Rico and Colombia.

GLOBRA describes it as the market leader in this area.

According to GLOBRA, the integration will let millions of online shoppers pay for goods and services on GLMall immediately.

The company says its proprietary parallel chain protocol lets it offer the new payment options to buyers at no cost, with the same decentralized security standards that apply to its own token.

GLMall, which GLOBRA calls the world's first decentralized e-commerce platform, is designed around data privacy, decentralized payments and fee-free transactions.

Users keep full ownership of their data.

To create its payment system, GLOBRA partnered with GAMB – Power to the Merchants and launched a native cryptocurrency, GMBT.

The company says it is the first zero-fee cryptocurrency in e-commerce.

GMBT is a parallel "clone" of GMB, a token listed on Ethereum. A swap mechanism links the two, and only one of them can be actively traded at any given time.

The token also underpins GLMall's buyer protection.

When a customer pays, the funds go into a public escrow wallet on the blockchain and stay there until the sale is completed.

If an order isn't fulfilled as promised, the buyer can be refunded in crypto through the blockchain. GLOBRA says the system prevents fraud and builds trust between buyers and sellers without relying on a central intermediary.

For sellers, GLMall offers blockchain-based marketing tools and access to customers that the company says conventional systems can't reach.

"We are past the inflection point on whether an online shop should have a crypto strategy or not. They now need to be evaluating what their crypto strategy should be based on their unique customer base and core products," said Dr. Wolfgang Pinegger, CEO of GAMB and GLOBRA.

GLOBRA presents GLMall as a way to include people who have been shut out of online shopping by the requirements of traditional, centralized systems. Shoppers without a bank account or credit card can take part using crypto.

The company also says the platform lets businesses in countries with high inflation, where currency swings can wipe out profits before they are realised, trade on their own terms, outside centralized financial structures.

GLOBRA believes blockchain and crypto technology are on course to replace today's centralized financial systems - and intends to keep working with like-minded partners to build accessible e-commerce and crypto payment tools.

About

GLOBRA was founded in 2013 in response to controversies over how major social networks handled user data. Its goal was to return control of personal data to users through an online platform built on blockchain technology, a goal that has since led to GLMall.