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Fiat-crypto payment gateway Alchemy Pay and its co-founder and majority shareholder, Shawn Shi,have been officially recognised by Forbes with the Web3 Innovation Pioneer award on 11 January. The Singapore-based payment solutions provider has a major research and development hub across Asia that has pioneered new payment systems at the very edge of modern fintech – convenient payments that seamlessly enable movement of funds between traditional fiat currency and cryptocurrency.
After its establishment in 2018, Alchemy Pay became the number one crypto payment system in Southeast Asia. 2022 saw Alchemy Pay move to d2c solutions for the first time. Its on and off-ramp and NFT checkout were all launched in Q3 and Q4 last year. The constant upgrades and innovations since initial launch has created a full suite of offerings that satisfy newcomers and surprise crypto natives. The ramp services (plugin or API) have been integrated by platforms all across the Web3 space, from large scale exchanges and to small, specialised token issuers and dApps.
The Forbes award recognises the company’s pioneering achievements in the fintech/crypto space. Forbes picked out entrepreneurs, investors, contributors to open source projects and crypto ecosystems who have made significant contributions to the development of Web3, saying they were “aiming to find cases of value creation by innovative companies in the Web 3.0 field, and to show how the current Web 3.0 wave is shaping a higher level of autonomy.”
Shawn Shi commented: “It is great to receive industry recognition for our work in the payment space. The scope of possibility is wide open and our team is always pushing the boundaries. We have proven again and again that any payment scenario with any customisation is possible. I’m very proud of our team and 2023 will continue to expand our vision.”
Alchemy Pay ended the year by integrating with Arbitrum, the world’s largest Ethereum scaling layer-2, going live with Apple Pay, and becoming an official service provider by Visa. Its success comes from its team’s significant working knowledge with both legacy finance and blockchain technology. At the foundation of the ramp is a network of payment processors, acquirers, exchanges, dApp devs and blockchains. This has been no small task; the team has a wealth of talent with expertise and it also managed to avoid any direct contagion from the recent fallout and scandals of the crypto market.
Alchemy Pay supports Mastercard and Visa in 173 countries, as well as large scale banking systems such as SEPA in Europe. Where the team has been at the forefront of invention, though, is in its peerless coverage in emerging markets such as SEA and Latin America. Locally based mobile wallets have become a huge part of the payment market in these emerging markets and Alchemy Pay enables users to buy and sell crypto using them. The result is that crypto platforms and services are able to access hitherto unreachable markets around the world.
Shawn Shi laid out his thoughts for the coming year: “In 2023 there will be no stopping us. This year will see the launch of our app that will be a one-stop shop for users who want to feel the full power and scope of what Web3 and crypto can offer. We are building for the long term.”
