Samsung denied reports that it’s embracing cryptocurrency payments in the near future, having explicitly labeled that claim as “not true” in a statement provided to The Next Web’s Hard Fork. The original rumor started circulating last week after an unknown Lithuanian startup CopPay published a brief Medium post on Friday, claiming it entered a partnership with the South Korean tech giant that allowed the company to start accepting cryptocurrency payments for purchases in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, and Kaunas.
The Medium article in question has since been deleted, with the blockchain startup first maintaining it collaborated with Samsung via a third-party reseller who didn’t inform the Seoul HQ of the development, then asserting the project fell apart when asked for evidence backing its statement. The company remains adamant it can prove some transactions took place during the trial period but is only willing to do it in the court of law. CopPay originally claimed that its technology would be implemented in point-of-sale terminals at 31 Samsung stores across three Baltic states, describing the supposed development as a sign of the conglomerate’s faith in its vision for the future of payments. Samsung itself remains interested in the blockchain segment but primarily through in-house efforts, with the bulk of the company’s current focus being placed on the underlying technology and not the cryptocurrencies it spawned. As a result, Samsung is said to be looking into blockchain applications in industrial use and supply network management, i.e. it’s exploring the technology from a purely innovation-oriented perspective with the goal of improving its operating efficiency instead of delivering new consumer-facing products or services such as alternative payment methods.
The cryptocurrency segment remains full of obscure startups paying for celebrities to promote their offerings and unjustifiably associating themselves with well-known companies in a bid to win more credibility. Cryptocurrency company carVertical claimed one such partnership with BMW this March, only to have the German automaker deny any special affiliation with the firm, claiming their relationship doesn’t extend any further than the startup using one of their public data APIs.