ACH, the utility token that powers the Alchemy Pay network, sits "at the heart of the world's first hybrid crypto-fiat gateway," the project’s website says. The platform offers a "crypto fiat interchange" with other payment providers, including SolPay, WeChat Pay, PayPay, UnionPay, Alipay, Rakuten Pay, Visa, MasterCard, online developers, e-commerce platforms and shops and gateway providers.

The ACH token reached its all-time high price of 19.9 cents in July 2021 and has been mostly on a downslope ever since. Its market capitalization has never cracked $500 million.

The token is built using the Ethereum blockchain's ERC-20 standard, with the total supply capped at 10 billion.

Some 38% of the tokens went to stakeholders, including to the founding team, advisers and business partners. The other 62% was set aside as rewards for enterprises and consumers. Many of those tokens are being unlocked in equal portions every month. That process, which started seven months after the first tokens were released, is supposed to last 60 months.

Alchemy Pay’s white paper is here, ahd the project, – officially named Alchemy GPS Singapore Pte. Ltd. – says it has developed platforms and incentives to "achieve seamless transactions between the separate worlds of crypto and fiat."

The network relies on "partners at the users' end, partners at the merchant/business end, partners of transaction service networks and our developer community."

In one scenario, developers in the digital entertainment industry could use the platform as part of a game payment product, in conjunction with an Alchemy Pay node. In another, a customer can use the platform to pay a retailer in crypto.

"Alchemy Pay's transaction processing system generates the payment transaction order," according to the white paper. A QR code is created that the user can then scan and pay – with a wallet app. The transaction order is written into a blockchain payment network.

"Users can also pay through the Lightning Network with a similar process," the white paper reads. The Lightning Network is a blockchain-based payment system.

Other use cases include loyalty points programs, escrow payments, local currency exchanges and credit lending, according to the project.

According to Alchemy Pay's website, ACH tokens are pledged, rewarded and paid as fees to drive and incentivize all of the ecosystem’s functions.

Payments companies buy and lock up ACH tokens in proportion to their network size and projected transaction volumes.

Users who pay network fees using the ACH token receive discounts, and consumer transaction rewards are earned through spending rebates.

The ACH tokens also "confer voting rights in token governance or community scenarios," according to the white paper.

"Individuals or groups with more than 5% of ACH's existing circulating supply can submit a proposal for votes. Proposals are executed if total votes exceed 10% of ACH’s current circulating supply and more than 51% of the votes are in agreement," the white paper reads.

According to Alchemy Pay, major risks include:

Sept. 4, 2019: ACH token is premined at a cap of 10 billion tokens.

Sept. 7, 2020: ACH token is listed on Huobi crypto exchange

Aug. 3, 2021: ACH token is listed on the Coinbase crypto exchange.

Entrepreneur Shawn Sh, the project’s chairman, co-founded Alchemy Pay. Previously, he was vice president of technology at ZhongAn, a Chinese insurance company. Before that, he served as head of marketing at the cybersecurity company Qihoo 360.

CEO John Tan previously worked for payments companies and public-relations firms, and had consulted for Fortune 500 companies, including Honeywell, RSA and DBS Bank, according to Alchemy’s website.

Molly Zhang, a senior adviser, worked in the payments industry, serving as a senior consultant for PayPal China and holding positions at HSBC China, GE Money and MasterCard China, according to Alchemy’s website.