Scottish Design Exchange is preparing for Scotcoin

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Lynzi Leroy runs the Scottish Design Exchange (SDX), which celebrated its 5th anniversary in July.

It started its life five years ago in Edinburgh but moved to the Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow more than three years ago.

The SDX is a social enterprise which supports local creative talent, and brings together a diverse range of Scottish artists, including fashion designers, furniture makers and chocolatiers in one creative space. Since it started the exchange has paid out more than £3.5 million to its artists.

Non-creatives can find out more about what they do and view their various collections instore, and Leroy is hoping to introduce Scotcoin there in the New Year.

“We’ve not integrated it yet, but we’re going to launch it in the New Year for customers,” she said.

“We had an event on our anniversary and gave Scotcoin away to our customers to try and get it them used to it.

“The project also very kindly gave a few Scotcoin to our staff and our artists, so it’s really all about getting it into circulation so we can then take it in the store.”

Not everyone is au fait with how to use any sort of cryptocurrency, but Leroy said it’s quite simple.

“It is really almost like using a QR code and an app and it takes the payment the same way as we do on our card machine, or anything like that.

“When I started the business it was started as a social enterprise community interest company and we rent space to the artists.

“They pay six-monthly costs, which is low when compared to a month to month arrangement, and they then get to keep 100% of their sales.

“The rent that we get in from the artists covers the costs of staff to run the space, to pay the rent and obviously being a social enterprise we don’t try to make big money out of them.

“But we need to make enough money to run the business.

“What’s interesting about this model is the customer decides, and we’ve got artists who have been with us for five years and do really well.

“And it’s a really good marketing opportunity for new businesses that are launching to come in and have very low costs and to test their product, test the pricing and the customer will soon let you know if that product’s going to sell or not.”

SDX have also relaunched their online shop, and Leroy expects that to speed up the growth of Scotcoin activity in the New Year. She said she had explained to people how it differs from a “normal” cryptocurrency, which holds their interest every bit as much as the idea itself.

“It is different from the normal cryptocurrency with it being a social enterprise,” she said.

“It’s a community interest company and the main interest for me was Scotcoin wanted to work with social enterprise businesses like myself.

“There are other businesses they’re working with and they’re looking to get the currency out into the community, so I think there’s some interesting projects coming up – charity to charity projects where we can have a sort of marketplace, where the charities can buy and sell from each other using Scotcoin.”

Leroy said people are generally very enthusiastic about Scotcoin and she is more than ready to start using it, for instance to pay the rent in her shop.

“It’s an exchange, person to person, and it’s just like any other currency,” she said.

“What people are more interested in is where and how they can spend it.

“The price of a painting, say £20, still stay as a normal price, so it depends on Scotcoin and what happens when they go on to the exchange.

“The painting will still be £20 and we would need to figure out how many Scotcoin that would be, but if you’ve got 20 Scotcoin in your wallet, it doesn’t stop being 20 Scotcoin and only alters when it’s on the exchange.”