Erik Finman Makes a Large Bet on a Libra Challenger 

Metallicus, the developers behind peer-to-peer payment processor Metal Pay, will get significant investment from Erik Finman, the self-acclaimed youngest Bitcoin millionaire.

Finman has partnered with Marshal Hayner, the chief executive of Metal Pay, to develop an all-in-one crypto banking platform, which also acts as cryptocurrency exchanges (for up to 17 separate digital assets), a digital bank, and a payment portal that works similarly to Venmo.

Metal Pay was established back in September 217, and till date, the company has processed about $11 million in payments, with a user count of almost 130,000 across several states. Speaking with news medium CoinDesk, Hayner revealed that the company processes about $1 million in fiat or crypto monthly.

Before he founded Metal, Hayner gained valuable industry experience, as he helped to build Dogecoin, Stellar, and VBlock.io. When Metal eventually launched, the company was quite a big deal, as it got $3 million in seed funding from Gateway, G2 Ventures, and Erik Voorhees, the CEO of crypto exchange ShapeShift.

Now, however, the app is expanding significantly. It previously supported only its in house token, Metal (MTL), but with support for Bitcoin, Ether, and more, it is hoping to accelerate adoption within a short period.

A social media post by Finman confirmed that users can now send and receive their assets on the app, signaling the beginning of their attempt to make a mark on the crypto market.

Reports estimate that Finman staked a significant amount of Bitcoin to finance the development of the new version of Metal Pay. He claimed that while he is ready to put about 400 BTC on the line to fund the growth of the app, the goal at the end of the day will be to “beat Bitcoin.”

“I’ve been a bit back and forth in the past (‘crypto is dead’/‘resurrect Bitcoin’) but have found in recent months, especially, that the Bitcoin community is super fragmented. And the actual usability for Bitcoin is minimal,” he said.

Finman further claimed that the entire project is an attempt to usher in a new evolution of cryptocurrencies; one where an asset can finally become an effective financial tool.

Hayner agreed with his partner, as he acknowledged the fact that while cryptocurrencies were always meant to be open source communities, they have somewhat grown to mirror the same financial industry that they should be looking to repeal.

Finman also took a rather bold approach to market the new platform, saying that the offering will help people buy cryptocurrency much better by bringing it to them, especially in ways that Libra, the stablecoin from social media giant Facebook, never could.

He went on to predict that the offering would destroy Libra. Whether or not that is true remains to be seen, especially given that Libra has yet to launch. The stablecoin has Facebook’s 2 billion-plus user base going for it, meaning that it might not have much of a challenge with adoption. However, if Metal Pay works as its founders have touted it, then we might have a real battle for supremacy on our hands.