CERES Coin Opens Up Mobile Payments Option for Legal Pot Business

With another 4/20 in the history books—and this time among one of the strangest environments for marijuana that’s been in quite some time (it’s actually legal in some places now, or kind of, because there’s the whole conflict between federal and state law)—we’ve had people’s thoughts once again turn to that old weed. News of a recent move was sent our way, and featured a whole new way for legal pot business to take payments independent of banks known as CERES.

CERES is actually yet another in a growing slate of cryptocurrencies, this time founded by a couple of West Point classmates and United States Army veterans. Originally part of a real estate investment company known as CoolMellon, CERES formed out of what seemed like the obvious answer to the question “What’s next?”.

The end result is a means to help facilitate marijuana business by addressing its two primary problems: conflicting law, which we’ve mentioned before, which in turn provides a difficult environment for traditional payment processors like banks to step in. This means banks are hard-pressed to join in lest the federal arm decide to enforce its laws more heavily. The second problem is more an operational problem, as there’s no uniform accounting system for the cannabis industry as a whole.

CERES, meanwhile, looks to fix the issues by offering a stable, uniform platform from which to operate. It uses a two-stage blockchain solution that ties into a larger investment network specifically geared toward the legal cannabis industry.

CoolMellon might have overlooked one key point: there’s already a coin out there for the legal cannabis industry, and it’s called Potcoin. Potcoin has been in play since 2014, and also offers a network and banking solution for its end users. Just what CERES has to offer that Potcoin hasn’t already been offering for years—except possibly the “veteran-owned” connection—is unclear, but it’s a question the company is likely going to have to answer to get interest in its offering built up.

CERES will need an edge to get ahead, in a market both stuffed with cryptocurrencies and a market where marijuana already has a coin. What that edge is is unclear as yet, but it had better find one fast.