The Medicinal Cannabis (R)evolution

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4.4 Banking and Payment Processing Solutions for the Cannabis Industry With the growing demand for medicinal cannabis and limited access to banking services, on an international scale, there has been the emergence of new mechanisms outside the traditional banking system for facilitating cannabis related transactions. Cryptocurrency The use of blockchain technology to facilitate the cannabis related transactions has been increasing post-haste, particularly in the USA, given some of the challenges facing the industry. A number of cannabis related cryptocurrencies have emerged ( Figure 6).

Figure 6: Cannabis Cryptocurrency Coins

This therefore begs the question, could this be an alternative for the ECCU for facilitating transactions related to medicinal cannabis, thereby limiting the risks associated with correspondent banking activities? There are a number of advantages associated with cryptocurrency, which would assist tremendously in the development of the medicinal cannabis industry: 1. It provides instant access to funds, settlement is immediate; 2. Ease of doing business is enhanced as funds between parties can be easily transferred; 3. Minimum processing fees; 4. Transactions are conducted over a secured network and allows for complete transparency. Source: https://cryptoslate.com/cryptos/cannabis/