Civic Inks Deal to Bring Blockchain ID to 1,000 Vending Machines

Now the company is announcing partnerships with 12 major automated retail companies - AAEON, AR Systems, Fastcorp Vending, Global Vending Group, greenbox Robotics, Invenda, IVM, IVS, Retail Automated Concepts, SandenVendo, The-Venders and Wemp - to bring similar technology to the masses.

The six partners control more than a million internet-connected vending machines, according to Civic.

Civic's demo at SXSW had previously used "Knowledge-based authentication," that is, a series of questions only one person would be likely to correctly answer.

Lingham told CoinDesk the company expects to use Gemini's GUSD in the Civic Pay app.

Stablecoins don't have the volatility of other cryptocurrencies, so when customers buy something through the Civic Pay app, they will most likely use GUSD to pay for it.

For its part, Civic may still pay credit card fees but it faces a lower chargeback risk because the app has already verified the identity of the user.

Civic declined to disclose a timeline for stablecoin deployment on the app.

Today, this is done by visiting a pharmacy counter, but Lingham says Civic is in talks to bring its technology to this vertical, though the timeline is much further out.

Civic will be demoing its application at the National Automated Merchandising Association's NAMA Show in Las Vegas from April 24-26.

Edit: This article has been updated to state that Civic has signed deals with 12 companies, not six, after new information was received from the firm.