Crunchfish Digital Cash AB (“Crunchfish”) is excited to announce that it has been granted a patent by the Intellectual Property Office in Taiwan for its pioneering Digital Cash patent application. Taiwan marks the third jurisdiction to grant a patent for this innovation, following similar grants in the United States and Europe. The patent, identified by patent number I888477 in Taiwan, is valid until January 2041, which is 20 years from the initial filing date in Taiwan. Applications are currently pending in India and China.

This patent encompasses numerous fundamental aspects of offline payment technology protecting Crunchfish’s signature layer-2 solution using a Reserve, Pay, and Settle approach. It allows transactions to be digitally signed by the payer from within a secure element – either hardware-based or software-based – provided there is sufficient funds in a reservation available online in the underlying layer-1 payment system. The transaction is then transferred to the payee for validation offline. Both parties retain a record of the digital transaction for subsequent settlement whenever either party regains online access.

“It is extremely gratifying that our foundational Digital Cash patent application for offline payments with priority dating back to early 2020 has also been granted in Taiwan, making it the third jurisdiction to do so, after the US and Europe. This development bolsters our optimism for favorable outcomes in India and China to come.” said Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish.

The patent application has already been granted in the US and Europe, and has received a positive International Preliminary Report on Patentability. Holding a patent in a country means that no entity is allowed to sell or market products that infringe upon this patent within its borders. Additionally, any entity based with this country is also prohibited from selling or marketing infringing products anywhere in the world.

Crunchfish is in the process of nationalizing patent applications in India and China for this innovation. In both cases, the examiners point to a patent application filed by Mastercard in 2018 as the closest prior art. However, Crunchfish has successfully demonstrated during the international patent process that there are significant differences between Mastercard’s 2018 and Crunchfish’s 2020 applications. A hearing in India is scheduled for the end of July, while communications with the patent offlice in China have thus far been conducted in writing.

For more information, please contact:

Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish AB

+46 708 46 47 88

joachim.samuelsson@crunchfish.com 

This information was provided by the above for publication on 11th July 2025 at 08:30 CET.

Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance AB is the Certified Adviser. Email: ca@vhcorp.se. Telephone +46 40 200 250.

About Crunchfish – crunchfish.com

Crunchfish is a deep fintech company pioneering a Digital Cash solution that enhance resilience, scalability and interoperability in payment ecosystems. The patented offline payment architecture supports both payment network providers and payment service providers in both commercial payment ecosystems as well as evolving CBDC initiatives. Headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, Crunchfish drives innovation to shape the future of payments.

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Crunchfish has updated its landing page on the web to provide a high-level overview on how Crunchfish augments any underlying layer-1 (L1) payment system by enabling multiple desired design objectives with its groundbreaking, modular, packet-switched layer-2 (L2) architecture. Further technical detail may be found under the other menu items or in any of our whitepapers.

Crunchfish updates its landing page on the web to provide a high-level description of its better understanding of its groudbreaking, modular, packet-switched L2 architecture delivered by the Crunchfish Digital Cash solution. Further technical detail may be found under the other menu items or in any of our whitepapers. Below is a summary of this superior approach to payments.

The groundbreaking approach: An L2 packet-switched architecture with wallets, terminals and gateways mitigates the inherent vulnerabilities in traditional L1 online payment systems. For online payments it provides resilience as well as load balancing as congestion can be avoided by batch processing during peak load. For offline payments, it brings many new use cases and for cash payments it enables return of change digitally. 

The modular approach: The L2 solution respects the roles and responsibilities of payment networks and payment service providers respectively by clearly separating the L2 wallet, terminal and gateway modules. This brings flexibility, scalability, and healthy ecosystem competition.

The layered approach: An L2 solutions built on top of L1 payment systems provides multiple key design objectives, such as resilience, privacy, scalability, and interoperability, by enabling off-chain processing while still achieving reconciliation and settlement on the underlying L1 payment system. Any L1 Payment Networks can be augmented with a L2 solution. Hybrid architectures, e.g. a CBDC, card network or realtime payment system can be augmented by a L2 solution to achieve maximum scalability, security, and resilience.

The packet-switched approach: Integrating a packet-switched architecture for a payment network ensures survivability in the face of failure, which is especially important for high-volume payment networks as it brings load-balancing to overburdening centralized servers. Bringing packet-switching to the higher-level application layer is just as groundbreaking as when the internet delivered packet-switching to the underlying communication layer.

The privacy approach: Privacy should be offered for all payments, not just offline payments, by using banks and intermediaries to reconcile and pay for their end users by proxy. Offline use cases may provide complete anonymity if that is desired by the financial regulator.

The universal and interoperable approach: By augmentating an underlying L1 payment system with an L2 solution it may work across devices, proximity methods, geographies, and demographics as well as crosssystems, cross-networks, and also cross-borders.

The seamless approach: A hybrid payment system merges transactions that has been cleared offline in L2 with a subsequent L1 online settlement. The future of digital payments hinges on balancing cost, resilience, and seamless integration, bridging traditional infrastructure gaps while gearing solutions for nextgeneration financial landscapes.

The superior approach: Crunchfish shows with its Digital Cash L2 solution a viable way forward with its groudbreaking, modular, and packet-switched architecture that augments any L1 payment system with multiple desired design objectives.

For more information, please contact:

Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish AB

+46 708 46 47 88

joachim.samuelsson@crunchfish.com 

This information was provided by the above for publication on 2nd July 2025 at 09:00 CET.

Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance AB is the Certified Adviser. Email: ca@vhcorp.se. Telephone +46 40 200 250.

About Crunchfish – crunchfish.com

Crunchfish is a deep fintech company pioneering a Digital Cash solution that enhance resilience, scalability and interoperability in payment ecosystems. The patented offline payment architecture supports both payment network providers and payment service providers in both commercial payment ecosystems as well as evolving CBDC initiatives. Headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, Crunchfish drives innovation to shape the future of payments.

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Crunchfish Digital Cash AB (“Crunchfish”) unveils today a new white paper on the topic Resilience, Privacy, and Other Key Design Objectives in CBDC and Commercial Payment Networks and Applications – A Groundbreaking Packet-Switched Layer-2 Approach. This whitepaper aims at explaining how the Crunchfish Digital Cash delivers resilience and privacy in particular and compares it also with four common payment systems. 

Mobile payment networks play a critical role in modern digital economies. However, their reliance on uninterrupted network connectivity and backend server availability expose vulnerabilities to payment service disruptions, such as loss of connectivity, overloaded networks, or backend infrastructure failures. These vulnerabilities result typically in transaction failures, negatively affecting both end-users and merchants. To address these challenges, Crunchfish proposes a packet-switched layer-2 approach with offline wallet and terminal modules that bring resilence, privacy, and many other key design objectives of next-generation payment systems.

The future of digital payments hinges on balancing cost, resilience, and seamless integration, bridging traditional infrastructure gaps while gearing solutions for next-generation financial landscapes. This whitepaper has shown a viable way forward with a novel packet-switched architecture delivered by the modular Crunchfish Digital Cash Layer-2 Solution that augments any Layer-1 payment network with multiple desired design objectives.  

The whitepaper is now available for download following this link and on the Crunchfish website at https://www.crunchfish.com/whitepapers/.

For more information, please contact:

Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish AB

+46 708 46 47 88

joachim.samuelsson@crunchfish.com 

This information was provided by the above for publication on 25th June 2025 at 17:15 CET.

Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance AB is the Certified Adviser. Email: ca@vhcorp.se. Telephone +46 40 200 250.

About Crunchfish – crunchfish.com

Crunchfish is a deep fintech company pioneering a Digital Cash solution that enhance resilience, scalability and interoperability in payment ecosystems. The patented offline payment architecture supports both payment network providers and payment service providers in both commercial payment ecosystems as well as evolving CBDC initiatives. Headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, Crunchfish drives innovation to shape the future of payments.

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The P.I.T. Exchange is a podcast by Currency Research that delves into the latest in Payments, Innovation & Technology, engaging with the industry’s most innovative thought leaders to provide invaluable knowledge and insights. In the latest episode, released today, Crunchfish CEO Joachim Samuelsson is featured on the topic of how Crunchfish is Rethinking Payments – online, offline and cash payments. This is Joachim’s second appearance on the P.I.T. Exchange.

In this 15th episode of the P.I.T. Exchange podcast, Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish, talks about Rethinking Payments in a world that demands resilience, trust and interoperability. From online and offline transaction capabilities to digital change solutions and smart contract innovation, Joachim shares practical insights to what challenges conventional circuit-switched payment models and offers a fresh packet-based approach forward.

This episode dives into actionable strategies for designing secure, scalable, and future-ready payment systems. Tune in for a conversation that unpacks what’s next in digital transactions and how to build systems that thrive even in the most demanding environments. On the same topic, Crunchfish has recently issued a whitepaper Rethinking Offline Payments – A Groundbreaking Ecosystem Approach.

A year ago, Joachim was also featured in the P.I.T. Exchange on the topic of Navigating the Future of Offline Payments recorded at the Digital Currency Conference in Kuala Lumpur. The conversation provided a wealth of insights into the evolving landscape of payments technology, particularly in the context of how to build distributed trust in client applications for offline payments and applications in other industry segments. The whitepaper Enabling Device-Agnostic Trusted Applications supported last year’s podcast.

For more information, please contact:

Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish AB

+46 708 46 47 88

joachim.samuelsson@crunchfish.com 

This information was provided by the above for publication on 18th June 2025 at 14:15 CET.

Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance AB is the Certified Adviser. Email: ca@vhcorp.se. Telephone +46 40 200 250.

About Crunchfish – crunchfish.com

Crunchfish is a deep fintech company pioneering a Digital Cash solution that enhance resilience, scalability and interoperability in payment ecosystems. The patented offline payment architecture supports both payment network providers and payment service providers in both commercial payment ecosystems as well as evolving CBDC initiatives. Headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, Crunchfish drives innovation to shape the future of payments.

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On Wednesday, June 11th at 12:00 CET, Crunchfish and Emerger invites to a luncheon where CEO Joachim Samuelsson will describe how Crunchfish is Rethinking Payments and why this will be a turnaround for the company.

At the luncheon Crunchfish CEO Joachim Samuelsson will describe how Crunchfish is Rethinking Payments and how this will be a turnaround for Crunchfish. Joachim Samuelsson and Emerger's Johan Widmark will have an open discussion around these five topics:

• Online payments – Survivability in the Face of Failure – A Packet-Based Approach
• Offline Payments – Reserve, Pay, and Settle with Digital IOUs
• Rethinking Physical Cash – Returning Change Digitally
• Beyond Payments – Market Potential for Crunchfish’s Innovations
• Turnaround – Third time’s the charm – Crunchfish’s new go-to-market strategy

Participants are invited to ask questions directly to Joachim during the meeting.

The luncheon is held in Swedish. No registration is needed, participation via the below link. Recordings of the luncheon will be available afterward on the Crunchfish website.

Luncheon (in Swedish)

Date and time: Wednesday June 11th at 12:00 – 13:00 CET

Click to participate

Meeting-ID: 382 794 966 103 7

Password: 9Bi79aR6

A short interview by Västra Hamnen from today serves as a good background to this luncheon.

For more information, please contact:

Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish AB

+46 708 46 47 88

joachim.samuelsson@crunchfish.com 

This information was provided by the above for publication on 05th June 2025 at 16:00 CET.

Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance AB is the Certified Adviser. Email: ca@vhcorp.se. Telephone +46 40 200 250.

About Crunchfish – crunchfish.com

Crunchfish is a deep fintech company pioneering a Digital Cash solution that enhance resilience, flexibility, and scalability in payment ecosystems. The patented offline payment architecture supports both payment network providers and payment service providers in modern commercial payment systems and evolving CBDC initiatives. Headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, Crunchfish drives innovation to shape the future of payments.

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With the introduction of its latest groundbreaking use case earlier today— eliminating the merchant pain point of returning physical cash as change by returning it digitally — Crunchfish is proud to announce its new tagline: RETHINKING PAYMENTS. This tagline reflects the company’s role as a deep fintech pioneer of practical, next-generation digital solutions that challenge conventional ideas about payments across online, offline, and physical cash ecosystems. While Crunchfish remains focused on payments today, the company’s patented and patent-pending innovations extend far beyond payments, positioning it as a leader in redefining how applications in many industries can solve critical challenges.

Crunchfish’s new tagline — RETHINKING PAYMENTS — represents its mission to provide innovative and practical solutions for the evolving needs of payment systems globally. Whether it is offline payments, making online payments resilient, or solving inefficiencies tied to physical cash, Crunchfish consistently challenges traditional paradigms to deliver meaningful improvements. Rethinking Payments reflects the company’s vision as it leads the way in reimagining every aspect of payments to meet the demands of the modern economy.

Online payments – Survivability in the Face of Failure – A Packet-Based Approach: Just as the internet transformed digital communications in the 90’s into a much more robust and resilient packet-based approach introduces Crunchfish’s patent-pending Trusted Application Protocol (TAP) resilience to the application layer of, for instance, digital payments by designing payment traffic with a packet-based communication architecture inspired by the TCP/IP protocols that built the internet. TAP ensures that payment applications function reliably even during backend server failures or disrupted network conditions. TAP works across proximity protocols (QR code, Bluetooth, NFC) and remote protocols (internet or SS7 signaling), making it transport-layer agnostic, ensuring secure end-to-end communication between clients as well as between clients and servers. With private key in a trusted client in a PKI-based architecture, TAP ensures secure communications in between clients and between clients and servers using software-based isolated runtime execution environments by virtual secure elements in the clients, offering unmatched security and scalability for both offline and online environments.

Offline Payments – Reserve, Pay, and Settle with Digital IOUs: Crunchfish’s signature offline payment solution enables digital payments to function even when disconnected from backend systems or the internet. Built on a patented architecture, the Reserve, Pay, and Settle (RPS) model allows payment ecosystems to operate seamlessly offline by issuing Digital IOUs locally in trusted client devices. These IOUs are reconciled securely when connectivity is restored, ensuring trust, scalability and interoperability across domestic and international payment networks. The patented solution is payment network agnostic and even makes diverse payment networks interoperable regardless if it is real-time payment networks (e.g., UPI, Pix), card networks (e.g., Visa, Mastercard), CBDCs, mobile money, stablecoins, other cryptocurrencies, or closed-loop payment systems.

Rethinking Physical Cash – Returning Change Digitally: Crunchfish earlier today introduced a revolutionary use case targeting one of the most persistent challenges in merchant ecosystems: returning change in physical cash. By providing digital change instead of coins or small banknotes, merchants can solve this pain point while reducing operational inefficiencies and logistical overhead. Leveraging Crunchfish’s offline payment technology, merchants sign Digital IOUs for returning exact change digitally, and customers only need offline terminals to receive the change. This decreases logistical challenges significanly surrounding coins and small denominations. Reduces cash handling costs while simplifying the payment experience, it provides a natural fit for Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), allowing physical cash-backed change to be issued as CBDC.

Beyond Payments: Market Potential for Crunchfish’s Innovations. Beyond its innovative contributions to payments, Crunchfish’s patented and patent-pending innovations have the potential to solve critical challenges across a wide spectrum of industries and applications. This was emphasized with Crunchfish previous tagline “Trust in Clients” outlined in a whitepaper released exactly one year ago. While the company remains laser-focused on payments for now, its innovative patented and patent-pending technologies — such as the Trusted Application Protocol (TAP) and offline-wallet-driven architectures — can be deployed across broader markets, including: 
 

• Authentication and Identity Management: Enabling secure, offline authentication for enterprise systems, digital identity programs, and device-to-device communications.
• IoT and Decentralized Systems: Enabling secure IoT data transmission or operations in decentralized systems using proximity-based interaction or offline methodologies.
• Mission-Critical Communications: Providing resilience for offline communication channels in scenarios such as disaster recovery and defense operations. 
   

Although these applications represent future revenue opportunities, Crunchfish is focused on payments today, given the enormous market opportunity that payments represent as one of the most evolving and innovation-driven sectors globally.

For more information, please contact:

Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish AB

+46 708 46 47 88

joachim.samuelsson@crunchfish.com 

This information was provided by the above for publication on 05th June 2025 at 08:30 CET.

Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance AB is the Certified Adviser. Email: ca@vhcorp.se. Telephone +46 40 200 250.

About Crunchfish – crunchfish.com

Crunchfish is a deep fintech company pioneering a Digital Cash solution that enhance resilience, flexibility, and scalability in payment ecosystems. The patented offline payment architecture supports both payment network providers and payment service providers in modern commercial payment systems and evolving CBDC initiatives. Headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, Crunchfish drives innovation to shape the future of payments.

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