Welcome back to our bi-monthly reporting, the Plutus team has unveiled some major developments and we are in the process of bringing these to life.

Pinned Announcements

- You can buy BTC, ETH & PLU on our BETA PlutusDEX platform with 0% fees.

- Our BETA Plutus Tap & Pay mobile app is available on Android and iOS. It lets you sell crypto for fiat and withdraw to your bank account via SEPA transfers.

- We have released our vision of Plutus 2.0, the upgrade will be arriving in Q1 2019.

Development Update

Cards
In order to accelerate the timeline of issuing cards, we have been diligently working with our universal card issuing partner to align our card designs within their technical tolerances. We are in agreement with the final card format and we are pleased with the current standings and delivery timeline.

Mobile Designs
We have redesigned the mobile on-boarding flow with the goal of moving a user as rapidly through the process as possible. The user story has been tested rigorously to build a seamless experience from login to payment.

Virtual Cards
The workflow for enabling virtual cards has been outlined and executed, they will be available on your account dashboard after we ship your physical card. Both physical and virtual cards are tied to your Plutus account, however, as an added security measure the fiat balance in your Plutus account is not tied to the balance in your debit card. You can manage your daily spending and transfer funds between your physical/virtual card and your current account directly from your Plutus app.

New Plutus 2.0 Landing Page
The average user spends just seconds on a webpage before clicking further or abandoning the site. Our new 2.0 web page will encourage users to quickly discover new features, evaluate pricing, set up accounts and trade crypto. Multi-language functionality is also a webpage feature we are looking to offer over the coming months.

Marketing Update

Implementing Weekly Plan
The marketing team prepared their weekly plan running up to the Plutus 2.0 upgrade and beyond. We are sticking to community-based organic marketing which includes company announcements via blogs, educational videos, social posts, content, company emails, press community events and more. This plan is well underway.

Press Networking
The team are also busy growing their press network by meeting with numerous journalist and leading finance publishers in order to provide premium coverage and awareness for our product upgrade. We have secured some exciting coverage and we believe this organic growth from genuinely impressive product developments is the key to long-term success.

Exchange

Pluton (PLU) is listed on third-party services such as Hitbtc, IDEX & other decentralised (ERC20) exchanges. If you would like to test our service, you can obtain Pluton from other users externally or from users of the Plutus platform using our built-in PlutusDEX.

We are continuing our research into exchanges for our reward token that we believe bring fair benefits to the usage and customer adoption of our platform.

Plutus Vacancies

We are in the process of hiring for two new roles: Senior Frontend Developer and Head of Blockchain. We are seeking top-end talent to contribute to our platform in order to accommodate the progress being made. If you believe you have the skill set required to add value to our company or know of someone who does, then please refer to our applications listed here.

Plutus 2.0

Last week our CEO, Danial Daychopan, announced our future vision of the company. The approaching upgrade will transform Plutus into a next-generation finance platform that incorporates both fiat and crypto.

Users will be able to hold GBP/EUR in a Plutus current account and access their personal integrated cryptocurrency wallet from the same interface as opposed to only crypto deposits available on the current version. We are also converging our current services so that both buy and sell functionality is available on desktop and mobile. The ability to access and manage your crypto/fiat within a single app, and freely exchange between the two asset types, is a development that will bring simplicity to a tech-heavy market.

Danial, says, “Our team is thoughtfully developing a finance app with a blockchain-based rewards system that will inadvertently increase real-world adoption of cryptocurrencies. This is part of our contribution to the ecosystem in enabling mass adoption.”

Every time you makes a purchase using the card, you will receive up to 3% back in the form of Pluton (PLU), our native utility token. PLU can be sent to friends, redeemed for additional Plutus services and those offered by our mainstream partners, or converted from within the platform to fiat and added to your card balance. More on this will be revealed in the coming weeks.

To read the full announcement, head over to our CEO, Danial Daychopan’s most recent blog post here, where he shares the future vision for Plutus. If you have any questions on the upgrade please post them on our Reddit thread or join him and our other team members live, we will be hosting an AMA session, on Monday 25th at 2PM GMT.

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Fact: Bitcoin has gone from 2 wallet addresses to nearly 32 million in just 10 years without any marketing.

People are realising the true potential of cryptocurrencies. The app features we are developing alongside our blockchain-backed rewards will inadvertently increase real-world adoption of cryptocurrencies.

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Join us on Telegram and read the full update on our Medium page.

Welcome back to our bi-monthly reporting, we have made some great progress over the last fortnight and hired some talented individuals to help build the future of finance applications.

Pinned Announcements

- You can buy BTC, ETH & PLU on our BETA PlutusDEX platform with 0% fees.

- Our BETA Plutus Tap & Pay mobile app is available on Android and iOS. It lets you sell crypto for fiat and withdraw to your bank account via SEPA transfers.

- We aim for a complete product overhaul including the card release to be completed in the coming weeks.

Development Update

Connectivity
The tech team has now established additional connectivity with our payment solutions provider to expand our currency set, adding functionality for GBP. This is a major development.

KYC Integration
Our KYC integration is complete and going through internal testing for Plutus 2.0, this includes watchlist filtering support and completed functionality to order a new card. These features are now in quality assurance.

Product
The product team is designing the integrated 3rd party wallet user interface which will enable users to interact with their cryptocurrency holdings via our application. We’re also designing a new transaction table where we can merge account and card transactions in a way that is intuitive for users. This includes updating the design for transferring funds and adding funds to account and card.

Mobile Development
We have switched from using native languages to the React Native framework for the mobile application build. We are reconfiguring and including all reusable components, these are re-designed to meet our brand guidelines.

Analytics
We have built our Plutus 2.0 analytics stack which will provide seamless product feedback loops, this will allow us to deliver constant improvements to our platform.

Marketing Update

Card Packaging
We have partnered with a leading packaging provider in order to deliver a premium service with packages that will house your very own Plutus Debit Card. We want to ensure a great user experience whilst remaining conscientious over our environmental footprint and brand ethos. We have explored all the available options and we are currently testing our favourite designs; we look forward to sharing our packaged Plutus Debit Card with you soon.

YouTubers
The marketing team is looking to build relationships with key crypto brands that have attained credible reputations within the sector. We have opened discussions and performed background checks on a select number of YouTube influencers who possess a strong following of users that match our target demographic. We believe some honest reviews of our platform will greatly elevate awareness in the run-up to our Plutus 2.0 upgrade.

Press Event Planning
The team are preparing for their high-end press event for the release of our mobile application. This will be an invite-only event with tier-one press attending. We are planning the luxury press bag to give to our guests with Plutus branded gifts inside to encourage attendance and organic press coverage.

AMA
Last week, Plutus held an AMA session to answer all your questions on the upcoming Plutus 2.0 release. We would like to thank everyone who joined us, this was a great opportunity to interact with the community and we hope you found it productive. Below is a link to the thread where this commenced, if you have any other questions that were not covered during the session, please reach out on our Telegram channel here.

New Hires

Plutus has made a series of new hires that we believe will elevate the development of our platform. As you may know, we believe a strong team to be one of the fundamentals of building a professional and successful product and we are very selective of our applicants as a result.

Baris Cicek has joined us as a Senior Backend Developer with an MSc in Computer Engineering and over 10 years of professional experience as a software developer. Baris has a wealth of expertise within his field and has helped build complex marketplaces in the past; we believe his skills will be invaluable to our team.

Lyubomir Budakov has joined us as our new Mobile App Developer. He has a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Technical University of Sofia and he has gained extensive experience as a professional software developer over the last six years from both frontend and backend perspective. Lyubo has focused his efforts on mobile app development for the last three years which will prove helpful for our cause.

Ivaylo Ivanov has also joined us to empower the QA team. He comes with five years of professional software testing and quality assurance experience with a focus on mobile and web applications. Ivaylo will improve the quality of our software releases, strengthen the CI/CD pipeline and help squash bugs.

Aleksandr Promakh joined Plutus with 6 years of web development experience, combining frontend and backend development. Aleksandr has a strong mathematical background and a BSc degree from the Ural Federal University in Computer Engineering. He often contributes to open source projects and he has delivered code for world-renowned brands such as Yandex.

We are more than pleased with the successful candidates and we are keen to see what a fresh perspective can bring to the table. Plutus has hit an exciting period in development and our Plutus 2.0 upgrade will be arriving very soon.

David Morrison who is well-respected amongst the team and community has also been promoted to Community Manager, he will be at the forefront of communications with the public. If you have any questions relating to our products, services or announcements; you can reach out to David on our Telegram channel here.

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Fact: 2018 saw a 95% increase in contactless payments in comparison to the year prior.

We are integrating digital currencies into everyday living practices. The ability to access and manage both crypto and fiat from the same user interface, freely exchange between the two, and spend at over 400 million merchants using NFC technology is revolutionary. There is not a single player on the market who is achieving this in a non-custodial and secure manner like Plutus.
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Join us on Telegram and read the full update on our Medium page.

Pluton (PLU) is now verified on Blockspot

https://blockspot.io/coin/pluton/

PLU is on coinexchange!
Trade here:
https://www.coinexchange.io/market/PLU/BTC
https://www.coinexchange.io/market/PLU/ETH

Hey everyone! We're collecting users for our initial card release. Did you pass KYC when you were using our services? If you did and you want to be one of the first to get hands on with the Plutus Debit Card, please can you send an email to support@plutus.it mentioning this post. Thanks!

Please ensure you're in one of the following countries:

https://support.plutus.it/hc/en-us/articles/360018430431-Supported-countries

Welcome back to our bi-monthly reporting, the team is working tirelessly to deliver the ultimate finance application and we are excited to be nearing the final stages of development.

Pinned Announcements

- You can buy BTC, ETH & PLU on our BETA PlutusDEX platform with 0% fees.
- Our BETA Plutus Tap & Pay mobile app is available on Android and iOS. It lets you sell crypto for fiat and withdraw to your bank account via SEPA transfers.
- We aim for a complete product overhaul including the card release to be completed in the coming weeks.

Development Update

Onboarding
The tech team has expanded, and we have familiarised the new employees with our products, services and processes. We are happy with the newly acquired applicants and they have already proven worthy hires.

Integration of Financial Management Systems
Plutus possess two finance partners which strengthens our available options and provides us with more flexibility than other crypto start-ups within the payments industry. The tech team has implemented multi-currency in dev environment and integrated both systems under the hood.

Backend & Infrastructure
The tech team has been working on database management and updated our system to meet our current stable release. We are using the same established database engine we used in Plutus 1.0, however, the software’s latest release has seen significant performance improvements. With this in mind, we have mixed an upgrade and migration into our Plutus 2.0 preparation process and now have dev and UAT environments upgraded.

PlutusDEX UI Improvements
Our development team has worked on improvements to our UI of the trading platform where one can buy, sell and top up their card balance directly with fiat or crypto by proxy. The UI for topping up one’s card with crypto will be more intuitive for users in our Plutus 2.0 release.

Marketing Update

Card Designs
Our card layout has been approved and we are now in the final stretch of production and packaging discussions. We are in the process of ensuring availability of card ordering shortly after the upcoming Plutus 2.0 release. We are currently piloting our cards internally, and with select users on our Telegram; there are more details on this later in the report.

Our Waiting List Is Open
We have opened the floodgates to our Plutus Debit Card waiting list. Just submit your email address on our corporate homepage to ensure you are first in line for any news regarding our Plutus Debit Card services. You can sign up here.

PR Progress
We have secured various editorial coverage in leading crypto and fintech publications in line with our upcoming announcements. We are continuing to speak with other tier-one press outlets regarding our progress to ensure as much visibility as possible during this critical period. Our international calendar of PR activities kicks off over the coming weeks so stay tuned for our latest article features.

Speaker Events
The marketing team has also actively been speaking with various finance and blockchain event companies regarding speaker slots for both our CEO, and to announce our new product features. Stay tuned as we have a busy calendar this year already.

New Platforms
Plutus is now on Blockfolio Signal! We are improving our communications with you, the community, so you can instantly discover the latest news about our next-generation finance platform. To find out the latest updates and exciting announcements directly from our C-suite team, join us here.

Plutus has also joined Discord, a free and secure chat channel available on both mobile and web. We have divided the platform into useful categories and sub-channels to make it easier for our users. Make sure you join us here.

New Hires

We are continuing to expand our highly reputable development team. Plutus 2.0 will not be the end of our development as we have plenty more milestones in the pipeline we aim to achieve. With this in mind, we have recruited three more software developers who excel within their field to help us across the final stretch and into the next chapters of product development.

Tomas Rastenis has taken the Senior Frontend Developer role at Plutus. He has delivered visually demanding and responsive products for big-name brands in the past and has implemented connection to the single Euro payment area using the Bank of Lithuania as a gateway. With over five years of software development experience, Tomas is a great addition to the team.

Edvards Kazlouski has joined Plutus with the role of Frontend Developer. He has delivered multiple frontend customer solutions including a shopping app and systems for both vulnerability management and talent acquisition. Edvards graduated from Belarusian State University, Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, and possesses more than five years of web development experience that will greatly benefit the Plutus team.

Daniel Witkowski joins us as a Senior DevOps Engineer with almost eight years of industry experience behind him. Daniel graduated from the University of Applied Informatics and BTM Management in Warsaw and worked as an IT administrator for numerous years before joining an advanced software R&D company.

General News

Test Card Pilot
The Plutus staff will be testing our Plutus Pilot Cards next week to ensure they are robust enough for our community; the team will run various scenarios across six subcategories and adjust the build accordingly if necessary.

We are rolling out a small batch of cards to selective community members for further verification. You can join our Telegram channel for more info on applying.

KPI Development
We have slowly and carefully selected team KPIs and we are now putting in place a data pipeline infrastructure that we can use to generate monthly reports for the senior managers to analyse. This will help us determine if the actions we are taking on a daily basis are moving us towards our business goals, and also enables a thorough assessment of our products and services. Compliance and Customer Service KPIs are locked down and implemented; Marketing and Product & Operations KPIs are next on the list.

Listings
Awareness of Plutus is growing, and our utility token (PLU) has been listed on various websites, wallets and exchanges over the last fortnight.

- Pluton is now available on Atomic Wallet, a universal multi-asset wallet with a built-in decentralised exchange.
- Pluton has been verified on Blockspot.io, a blockchain data platform that can be used to track and analyse our native utility token.
- You can now trade PLU/BTC and PLU/ETH pairings on CoinExchange.io.

May we remind you to look out for phishing scams when using any platform or services that refer to Plutus. Security is of paramount importance to us and we will always ensure our users and their assets are safe. Please conduct your own due diligence for instances outside of our control when using any third party services, these are not partners of Plutus and they have added PLU due to its decentralised nature and use cases provided by Plutus.

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Fact: The decentralised nature of Bitcoin means it cannot be banned, only regulated.

The UK Treasury Committee is investigating ways to regulate cryptocurrencies. Plutus has taken every precautious possible since its inception to ensure we are 100% regulatory compliant in every area. Regulations could heavily impact a large number of crypto start-ups, however, our foresight into such trends will ensure our longevity in the market.

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Join us on Telegram and read the full update on our Medium page.

Plutus is now on Discord! This is part of our continued effort to improve communications with our community. We have split the channel into useful categories and sub-channels so you can easily find exactly what you’re looking for. Join us here.

https://discord.gg/JRzs7YQ

We recently unveiled our new and improved Plutus 2.0 website! The new site showcases some of our latest finance features and a complete design overhaul.

Please read the official statement from our CEO here.

Visit our new corporate website here.

Here is an article by our CEO, Danial Daychopan, on whether centralised stablecoins are a necessary evil for widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies. The article shares his personal thoughts, opinions and educated insights into how the industry is unfolding. Give it a read here.