In addition to smart home products such as lamps and curtains, now also smart contracts at IKEA

Sometimes small, isolated actions can have a big impact. This is one of them. IKEA in Iceland has paid a bill with an ERC20 token. This means that payment has been processed via the Ethereum blockchain.

IKEA, one of the world’s largest furniture stores, recognizes the possibility of paying with cryptocurrency.

A successful collaboration

Several parties have worked together to make this payment possible. One of those parties is Tradeshift, a specialist in supply chain payments and market places. Monerium is also involved, they are the world’s first authorized supplier of e-money for block chains. Using the Tradeshift platform and smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, the Icelandic retailer Nordic Store has purchased goods from IKEA Iceland. The invoice was then paid via the Monerium platform with cryptocurrency. Although crypto, the legal term is e-money.

It is therefore not an existing token that can be found on CoinMarketCap, but a coin that only exists in the system of Monerium.

Congrats to @tradeshift for stepping towards “the science fiction”, achieved this week when Tradeshift integrated with Monerium, connecting “the invoicing, the money, and the inventory,” said Hafsteinn Gudbjartsson, co-owner of Nordic Store. https://t.co/VvCpRUZrgp pic.twitter.com/5jxD9sbkyv

– Susie West (@Susie_West_) October 2, 2019

Smart contracts lead to automatic payments

The importance of this payment is not only symbolic, it proves that a framework has been built through which you can pay with cryptocurrency’s on the regular market.

“Programmable money regulated by governments is becoming the basis for e-commerce payments because they enable so-called smart contracts. Smart contracts offer many uses. For example, they can be used to generate smart invoices. These are invoices that settle themselves, “says Gert Sylvest, co-founder of Tradeshift.

“Smart invoices are not only useful for reducing administrative barriers in cross-border business transactions. They are also useful for building new financing models that improve access to credit for businesses. And that is good for the cash flow. This is an important step forward. “

The start of something bigger

Research firm Gartner, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have already seen this coming. In their paper Hype Cycle for Multienterprise Solutions, Gartner already predicted that blockchain and smart contracts will have a major impact within two to five years. The IMF wrote about the same in the Rise of Digital Money: Cryptocurrency’s and blockchain will ensure seamless payment of automated transactions and more efficiency in back-office tasks. And if WEF is right, then we are just at the beginning. They expect that by 2027 ten percent of the worldwide gross domestic product will go via blockchain.