HBAR Jumps 16% in Past Two Weeks on FedNow Addition of Hedera-Based Dropp

Despite Bitcoin's recent bloodbath had H Bar Token has risen nearly 16% in the last two weeks as the Federal Reserve's instant payments platform fed now listed drop as a based micropayments platform as a service provider. Joining us now to discuss this drop, CEO soil pra Welcome to the show. So, hey, good morning. Yes, thanks. Thanks for inviting me. Of course. Thanks for being here. Now drop allows micropayments in H bar the US dollar and circles us DC just briefly give us an overview um of drop and how it works. Sure, absolutely. So drop is a micro payment platform. It's an extremely cost effective platform built to support both fi which is US dollar uh in our case and um digital currencies like us DC, stable coins, right? It is consumers are looking for more choices um in terms of payments and merchants are looking for a very extremely cost effective platform. So we will drop based on three key drivers that we see in the market. One of them is 50% of the consumer reported payments are under $25 and there is no cost effective payment platform out there to uh enable payment, small payments. And the second big trend that we see in the market is a global emergence on instant payment rails, which is where the Fed now comes in. So there is a global emergence of instant payment rails, both in terms of the banking rails and in terms of the digital currencies, right? Um but these are just rails, there is no payment capability on top of those rails, right? And that's what Dr provides. And the third key aspect uh which is again, why Fedna is quite relevant to us is there's been lots of studies out there that for mass adoption, um consumers prefer digital wallets provided by their bank. As long as it has all the other features that they're looking for is rewards and uh buy and now pay later all of those services. So we drop specifically for this market, which is small value transactions, instant payments and then you can pay via bank. So that that's what drop in a nutshell is. It's built on a hash that's why is very relevant to us. Uh We use hashtags um Ledger for managing the Ledger itself when you describe it, it it it sounds like you would this product would be very useful in developing nations with lots of small business owners who have to do a lot of micro transactions. Was this built with the US market in mind as one of the initial use cases or were were you thinking of uh more of the developing world who have a need for micro payments like this. Uh Good question. Thank you. So most people, so when they think about micro payments, first of all, they think about a small market. So first I want it, it's a huge market. It is a market based in the US. And you're right, it's a, it's a global market all over the world. One of the markets that we are initially focusing on because I call it the low hanging fruit is the digital market, the digital media market, right? I mean, everything that you buy in the market right now, uh whether it is a newspaper, watch TV, all of that is sold on a subscription basis, right? There is no cost effective way for you to buy a product for a dollar because if you buy a dollar, you will spend 50 cents paying the transaction fee, right? So yes, you're right. It's a global market. The need is everywhere. And I think that's the trend, instant payment, small value transaction for everyday purchases and we are definitely focused on it. But we have, we've started in US and now we're gonna slowly like we also have a on our um on our ledger we're gonna be introducing in UAE, we're gonna introduce in other countries too. But we started in us because there's still a need in the digital media space here. Everything that you buy in subscription is a fair game for paper use. And that's what we're promoting at this point. All right. And now just to clarify something for me, drop is being showcased by Fed. Now, is there an official partnership there or what does it actually mean to be showcased? Correct? Thanks. So the Fed now showcase is a directory of banks and payment services that are going to offer Fed now, payment services. Ok. So it is a way for these institutions like us to promote our products to banks and credit unions who are any other merchant who would like to use fed now in, in the near future. So it's a, it's a way for them to promote. It is not an endorsement and it's not a specific singular relationship. It is a way for us to promote one of the things that Dr offers is embedded payment system. We've been trying to promote our product or trying to distribute our product through our banking relationship, right? So for us, it becomes really relevant because we are going to form a relationship with the financial institution to offer uh fed now instant payment services and that would then be offered to other banks through which we're going to distribute the product. So, um it is, it really is not a singular relationship between us or any partnership between the Fed now and us, but it really is a major step in the direction to offer instant payments to every consumer in this country and globally everywhere else. Are you working with any financial institutions? Any banks in the US right now? Yeah. So several, one of the we are working with several institutions for different purposes with some way of working to actually distribute the product. So when you uh when you form, when you create a bank account, you will be able to get drop as a payment services with some other institutions. We are trying to offer real time payment. So we need their services. We need to work with the banks to offer it. Um Drop connects to this financial institution through that we connect to fed. Now there is another service called the RT P from the clearing house. That's also another second major rail that we have here. So we definitely are working with this institution and we are going to have a phase approach as to how we're going to be um deploying instant payments. Can you tell us which financial institutions you're working with that, that II I can't disclose, but we will, you know, as it, as it progresses and as we get ready to go live, we will, the first thing that we we are going to do is have the merchant dispersement, which is merchants right now are getting paid through our system using ACH that's going to be changed to uh RTB or you know, depending on, on the merchants need. Then the second thing that we're gonna do is you will have, uh, payments, you're funding your wallet to drop wallet that would become instantaneous. And then the third stage will be complete instant payments where you could walk into a restaurant and pay instantly, um, uh, using your, uh, bank account. Right? So it's a stage approach and we're working with this institution to offer that. All right, we spoke about that H bar token that pumped on the news that the fed now is highlighting uh drop. Why did you decide to build on top of? Oh, that, that was the the easiest decision that we made. Uh How has drive is really built for fintech applications? Uh the speed of the transaction, it's about it. It can do 10,000 transactions a second when you talk about small value transactions, um you're doing small value transactions that mean you might do 10 20 of them in a day, right? So we needed, we needed the speed, we needed the volume and, and how has that. But the second important aspect is the cost of the transaction. So hashtag has a fixed cost and it's fraction of a fraction of a second. It's 0.001. Uh So it's a no-brainer when it comes to building a payment platform. I'm kind of surprised how come others haven't built uh their platform on, on, on the third important aspect uh which is uh more specific to drop as we promote our product. People are also interested in who's behind this ledger, right. And the governing council that they have in Hadera helps us uh they have top financial institutions behind them. They have uh top companies like Google and IBM behind them. It, it all helps, it helps when they see its open access, open source and a large set of enterprises behind it as a governing council. So the if you look at the entire package, it becomes a very easy uh option to go for. I gotta ask you really quickly, you talk about micro payments for digital media. We hear a lot about uh creators getting paid on platforms such as X um new innovation happening. Do you see drop being used for digital creators on platforms like X and Instagram? Uh I can't comment on but I can tell you, I, you're asking me a question which is so near and dear to us. The first one of the first thing that we uh deployed once we uh created the core platform is micro tipping, right? The creative economy. Um Most of the creative don't really make a lot of money and all of them go after subscription. So what we built was a word press plug in. This is like a early this year where you could just download the plug in and start accepting tips, right? Which is similar to what the X and the rest of the uh companies are gonna try to do uh if I can get a dollar tip and pay as little as 4 to 5 cents as a transaction fee. Then it's a viable business. Then it's a physical transaction, right? And we make that possible. So you're right. So digital media, micro tipping is a part of it. But let's not also forget there's this whole world of small value transaction which is connected devices you're paying for parking. Are you paying for your EV charging or EV charging company paying you credits for some, some things that you did for them. So it's not just uh, payments, it's also the micro credits and micro royalties is one of the big items that we are promoting because we believe that uh, it's not about you paying. You're also being paid for the services that you do and it has to be in an extremely cost effective way because you'll be making these payments, you'll be getting these payments, which will be 10 cents and 20 cents and it has to be very cost effective to make it possible. We make that possible. All right. So we're gonna have to leave it there. Thank you very much for joining the show this morning. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. That was drop ceo Sushil pra.