Co-founder Widya Salim describes her business, Cryptartica as a cryptocurrency-based design platform. Designers can upload their work and put it on a product (just tee shirts at the moment, but with more kinds of products promised for the future). Then Cryptartica will produce the physical product, and either ship it to the designer to sell, or designers can just invite their customers to go to Crypartica and order the product for themselves. All transactions are done in Bitcoin SV (BSV) or Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
For now, Cryptartica’s website offers a range of designs around BSV and BCH - and even Craig Wright on a tee shirt -, but Widya is hoping that one day, the site will be “less niche” and its users will offer a wider range of subjects: “our whole idea is to have designers who are not just into cryptocurrency.”
Widya has been interested in Bitcoin since 2013. But in recent years, she’s been more involved because there’s been more emphasis on promoting adoption than just currency speculating.
By requiring her customers to trade in crypto, Widya may be limiting her market at the moment, but she says that she wants Cryptartica to help lower the barriers to entry for new users. For instance, if you’re a designer whose product sells, all you need to receive your payment is a wallet: you won’t need to use an exchange in order to acquire your first Bitcoin.
To set up the business, Widya has established links with a network of suppliers around the world who will manufacture and ship the products. In terms of sales patterns, Widya has noticed that when the value of Bitcoin decreases against fiat currencies, “people are less willing to spend, because a lot of people a lot of people still think in fiat currency”. But when the value of a cryptocurrency rises, then people start buying.