TWO Scottish firms have joined forces as part of a new partnership in a bid to expand their operations.

Scotcoin, which describes itself as “one of the first and most successful country-related alternative digital currencies," will now be accepted on the Kin platform – an ad-free, community-owned search engine operated by Better Internet Search and developed in Scotland .

First established in 2013, Scotcoin is a Scottish cryptocurrency and is part of a major global market thought to be worth trillions. 

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It is linked to The Scotcoin Project which has worked with a number of groups such as Social Bite and homeless charity Emmaus.

The new partnership means that each new sign up to the Kin platform will now receive 100 Scot, in addition to 100 Kin-MPC tokens which users will then be able to donate to selected Scotcoin partners in the third sector.

Around 8000 people own Scot and 4000 use Scotscan – the app that allows people to hold and transfer their tokens – following its redevelopment earlier this year.

The vision behind Scotcoin is “to help facilitate a better Scotland using digital currency as the fuel to help deliver lasting change”. 

The partnership comes ahead of Scotcoin’s planned listing on a cryptocurrency exchange during 2024.

The company is aiming to develop a wide network of third sector organisations and preferred partners in the private sector, which will accept the token in exchange for a range of goods and services – initially focussed on food, clothing and shelter.

Reacting to the news, The Scotcoin Project’s CEO Temple Melville said: “We have worked with the Better Internet Search team for a while now and it is great to further develop our relationship through this partnership.

“We share similar ethical principles and Kin’s user base is tech-savvy and already engaged in Crypto, much like our own.

“So, this initiative provides both projects with a new constituency of people and charitable organisations to support.”

The National:

Founder and CEO of Better Internet Search Gordon Povey (above) added: “We are delighted to be collaboration with Scotcoin.

“Kin is Scotland’s only search engine and it makes sense to work with Scotland’s only cryptocurrency since we have a common goal of contributing to social good.”