COMPANY

Name: Moon

Legal Name: Moon Technologies, Inc.

Location: New York City, New York

Founded: 2018

Founder(s): Kenneth Kruger

Website: https://paywithmoon.com/

Social Media Following: 69 Likes on Facebook, 1323 Followers on Twitter, 128 Followers on Instagram

INDUSTRY – Cryptocurrency

Size: $1.037 Bn in 2019

Projections: Estimated to reach $1.4 Bn by 2024 (CAGR of 6.18%, 2019-2024, ResearchandMarket.com)

Introduction

The adoption of cryptocurrency by consumers has been constrained by how difficult it is to transact using Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies on retail platforms. Moon seeks to solve the problem by allowing major cryptocurrencies to be used for purchases at any online retailer. Users can make instant, secure, and free payments using popular cryptocurrencies as they would pay through a credit card when they use Moon’s platform on Amazon.com, and the company promises to add other popular e-commerce platforms in the near future.

The Product

Moon is a digital payments platform which works as a browser extension. Once users have installed the extension, created a Moon account and linked their Coinbase accounts, they can pay with Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, or Bitcoin Cash directly on Amazon. Payments through the platform are seamless, instant, and secure – Moon does not act as a custodial service, and all the data is encrypted. At the Amazon payment page, users can just choose ‘Pay with Moon’ to use their cryptocurrency to make purchases.

The company website claims that it is currently engaged in making these payments accessible on websites other than Amazon.com, such as Domino’s, Target, Etsy, AliExpress, and eBay.

Origin and Founding Team

Founder and CEO Kenneth Kruger has a Bachelors in Computer Science from Cornell University and a Masters in Operations Research at Columbia University. According to a Medium Post by Columbia Venture Community, Moon was born out of the growing demand for spending cryptocurrency instead of ‘fiat’ currencies. Kenneth was then hired as a software engineer at Lockheed Martin, following which he turned to entrepreneurship, founding two companies before starting Moon in late 2018.

Co-founder and former CTO Alexander Ang has a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore, completing the final year of his course as one of the University’s Overseas batches based out of New York. He is no longer associated with the company.

Performance and Trends

Moon has been chosen as one of Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA)’s winter batch for 2019, which comes with $100K in funding.

After his recent departure, Alexander Ang has repeatedly posted on Reddit to express concerns over Moon’s privacy claims and suggesting that Kenneth and Moon were knowingly in violation of GDPR and other compliance rules under which they were required to protect digital private information. While these claims have been strenuously denied, they have set off a complex war of words and trading of allegations which are yet to be settled.

The company has also engaged in unconventional marketing activity, using Donald Trump’s recent tweet misleadingly calling the Moon a part of Mars to gain social media traction and attract media coverage.