Major US Payment Card Company Announces Multiple Digital Asset Initiatives
By Robert A. Musiala Jr.
A major U.S. payment card services company recently announced multiple digital asset partnerships and products. According to a press release, the company will join the Paxos Global Dollar Network “to shape stablecoin adoption, enable USDG, USDC, PYUSD, FIUSD across its network, and launch new capabilities” through the company’s Move and Multi-Token networks. The same press release announced new products designed to enhance security and compliance in digital asset transactions.
In a second press release, the company announced a new partnership with a major U.S. fintech firm to integrate the fintech firm’s newly launched institutional stablecoin, FIUSD, “across a range of … products and services, expanding stablecoin adoption and utility for their shared customers around the world” and enabling FIUSD to be used to pay “more than 150 million merchants.”
In a separate press release, the same U.S. fintech firm and issuer of the new FIUSD stablecoin announced a partnership with the issuer of the PYUSD stablecoin “to build future interoperability between FIUSD and … [PYUSD], to allow consumers and businesses to move funds domestically and internationally.” According to the press release, combining the “global reach” of the FIUSD and PYUSD issuers “across banking, consumer, and merchant payments, interoperability will allow both firms to further expand the use of stablecoins and programmable payments around the globe.”
And a final press release by the U.S. payment card services company announced that the company has partnered with Chainlink to “securely enable payment cardholders worldwide to easily purchase crypto assets directly onchain through a secure fiat-to-crypto conversion” that leverages Chainlink’s “secure interoperability infrastructure” and the payment company’s “trusted global payments network.” The press release notes that the new product integration includes support from an app that utilizes the Uniswap protocol.
For more information, please refer to the following links:
US Fintech and Digital Asset Companies Continue Crypto Product Launches
By Robert A. Musiala Jr.
According to a recent press release, FalconX, “a leading digital asset prime brokerage,” has joined Lynq, “a broker-dealer operated real-time settlement utility powered by a tokenized treasury fund….” The press release notes that FalconX “will be a day one user and is actively connecting via API to the Lynq platform in preparation for launch.”
In other news, a major U.S. fintech company and chartered bank recently announced “new crypto-powered capabilities” including the ability for users of the company’s app to send international money transfers “on secure, well-known blockchain networks, converted into local currency at the destination, and rapidly deposited into the recipient’s account.” According to a press release, “later this year” users of the company’s app “will be able to buy, sell, and hold a selection of crypto currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.” The press release notes that the company eventually “intends to offer stablecoins and a wide range of other services, such as providing members the ability to borrow against their crypto assets … and introducing new staking features.”
Two major U.S. cryptocurrency exchanges recently announced that they have secured Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) licenses, which will allow the exchanges to serve customers in every European Union state. One exchange secured its MiCA license through Luxembourg, and the other secured its license through Ireland. The latter exchange also recently announced its “Krak app,” which is described in a press release as “a next generation, all-in-one global money app.” According to the press release, among other features the Krak app enables funds transfers across 110 different countries using “300+ assets spanning crypto, stablecoins and fiat currencies.”
According to a recent press release, Ripple Labs is “expanding XRPL’s multichain capabilities” by integrating the XRP Ledger (XRPL) mainnet and the XRPL EVM Sidechain with Wormhole, a leading cross-chain interoperability protocol. According to the press release, the integration “will enable cross-chain messaging, asset transfers and multichain issuances of tokens which will support additional use cases across DeFi, institutional onchain finance, and real-world assets.”
In a final notable item, Ledger, a leading provider of digital asset “cold storage” hardware, has released a novel offline tool for recovering digital asset private keys. The product, called Ledger Recovery Key, takes the form of a smart card with a near field communication (NFC) connection. The product reportedly allows users to recover private keys by tapping the smart card to their Ledger hardware wallet and entering a PIN code.
For more information, please refer to the following links:
New Report Predicts Crypto Markets Have an Opportunity to Capitalize on AI
By Lauren Bass
There is an “increasingly important and symbiotic relationship between crypto and AI” – at least, according to a recent report authored by an institutional crypto market maker. The report asserts that as artificial intelligence (AI) development shifts from infrastructure to application, there is “value capture” opportunity for certain crypto subsectors, specifically:
- Decentralized training, where distributed infrastructure can reduce costs and enhance training scalability
- Data, which allows developers to monetize and trade proprietary data sets
- AI agents, which leverage blockchain for trustless execution and composability
- AI-based systems, which align economic rewards with network participation and model contributions
The report predicts that the “convergence of AI and crypto [will] unlock massive opportunities across several sectors.” Focusing on the decentralized infrastructure of both markets, the authors contend that there is a “potential for synergistic growth [that] is immense” and that the intersection of crypto and AI will be “one of the defining technological trends of the decade.”
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BIS Report Addresses Tokenization, Stablecoins
By Jonathan Cardenas
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) recently published a report that outlines its views on the next-generation international monetary and financial system. The report suggests that tokenization has the potential to modernize “cross-border payments, securities markets and beyond,” and identifies the tokenization of central bank reserves, deposits and government securities as potential “stepping stones” in the evolution of the international monetary and financial system. The report also lays out BIS views with respect to stablecoins, which BIS believes “fall short” of requirements for serving as the mainstay of the international monetary system. The report concludes by identifying central bank leadership as essential to unlocking the full potential of tokenization.
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Texas Authorizes Bitcoin Reserve; New York Issues Crypto Guidance
By John E. Robertson
According to recent reports, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed a bill authorizing the creation of a Texas strategic Bitcoin reserve. The bill reportedly limits the reserve to only including digital assets that exceed a market capitalization of $500 billion. Currently, only Bitcoin satisfies this requirement. The reserve will be managed by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts with guidance from three cryptocurrency investors.
In other news, the New York State Department of Financial Services recently issued new guidance to entities in the context of ongoing global conflicts. The guidance touches on the topics of cybersecurity, sanctions and cryptocurrencies. Regarding cryptocurrencies, the guidance cautions entities that “virtual currency transfers may be used to evade sanctions.” The guidance recommends that entities engaged in virtual currency business put in place policies to prevent the evasion of sanctions. Recommended policies include using geolocation tools and IP addresses to detect and prevent sanctions exposure, as well as using blockchain analytics tools to track and identify transactions with virtual currency addresses associated with sanctioned persons.
For more information, please refer to the following links:
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