Tag:

Crypto

Volkswagen Singapore Lets Customers Pay In Crypto Via Fomo Pay
GameFi Guides

Volkswagen Singapore Lets Customers Pay in Crypto via FOMO Pay

by admin



Volkswagen Singapore is moving fast to transform car buying by letting customers pay with cryptocurrencies. The company partnered with FOMO Pay, a local firm, to allow customers to make payments using Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and stablecoins like USDT and USDC. 

As per the release, a survey done recently shows that about one in four Singaporeans now own digital assets, highlighting a growing interest in digital currencies. Volkswagen Singapore is responding by offering more modern and flexible ways to pay.

The integration with FOMO Pay ensures secure and efficient transactions. Dr. Kurt Leitner, Managing Director of VGS, explained, “An increasing number of consumers today are digital natives. 

They expect speed and convenience across all touchpoints, including how they pay.” The partnership targets partial payments for new vehicles and aftersales services, with daily transaction limits of SGD 4,500 and a maximum of SGD 13,500 to prevent misuse.

How VGS Implements Crypto Payments

VGS handles digital assets transactions through the enterprise architecture of FOMO Pay. The gateway makes sure that there is alignment with local regulations and offers up-to-the-minute currency rates. This means customers can enjoy easy payments, while the business maintains a clear and open operation.

Furthermore, this integration supports Singapore’s goal of creating a digital economy. Rose Wang, Head of Digital Payments at FOMO Pay, noted, “As Singapore advances toward becoming a smart financial center, we believe digital assets will continue to play an important role in improving customer experience.”

However, VGS also emphasizes customer choice. FOMO Pay accepts hybrid and fiat payment methods for both online and offline purchases. The multi-channel strategy helps VGS be dedicated to providing a mobility experience.

Volkswagen Singapore is making it easier for customers to pay with digital currencies. This shift is changing the way people engage with premium brands. By embracing cryptocurrency, VGS is not only offering greater convenience and security but also adding flexibility to the mix, all while modernizing its payment systems for a fresh, contemporary experience.

Also Read: Solana Expands to Dubai With First Official Hub



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Faraday Future pivots to crypto and AI as car sales falter
NFT Gaming

Faraday Future pivots to crypto and AI as car sales falter

by admin



Amid struggles in its EV business, cash-starved Faraday Future is pivoting to crypto and AI.

Summary

  • Faraday Future is pivoting to crypto and embodied AI
  • The firm hopes its crypto treasury will attract capital and help it raise cash for its business
  • So far, Faraday Future has produced only 16 of its FF 91s vehicles

The struggling EV startup Faraday Future is pivoting to crypto and AI. On Sunday, August 17, EV startup Faraday Future announced the launch of a treasury product, as well as a new focus on embodied AI.

Faraday Future is launching the C10 Treasury product, a weighted basket of the top 10 crypto assets, excluding stablecoins. The fund will allocate 80% of the funds according to the index and actively manage the other 20% for greater returns.

The fund is aiming for $500 million to $1 billion in initial crypto asset purchases, with an initial purchase of $30 million. Moreover, the company hopes to earn an estimated 3% to 5% in staking yields, which it will use to fund stock buybacks and innovation in its core business.

Faraday Future’s business struggles

Faraday Future hopes to leverage crypto and AI to reinvigorate interest in its business. According to the firm, the goal is to combine the short-cycle crypto business with the long-cycle embodied AI for electric vehicles.

“The next decade could be a super long bull cycle for the crypto market,” said Ian Calderon, FF Co-Creation Officer. “FF is building a dual-engine circular growth system — combining the long-cycle, high-value EAI EV ecosystem with the short-cycle, high-velocity Crypto ecosystem. These two flywheels will empower each other, redefining what’s possible in mobility and financial innovation.”

Once dubbed a potential Tesla competitor, Faraday Future’s business has been struggling. By January 2025, the company had only produced 16 of its flagship FF 91 vehicles. Most were given to employees and advocates.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Dogecoin Founder Reacts to Sudden Crypto Market Collapse
NFT Gaming

Dogecoin Founder Reacts to Sudden Crypto Market Collapse

by admin


Dogecoin (DOGE) founder Billy Markus, known on X as Shibetoshi Nakamoto for his sarcastic and ironic comments on cryptocurrency, has dropped a note on the current market outlook. In a post for his more than 2.2 million followers, Markus captured recent events with different crypto assets and their attempts to hit new levels.

Billy Markus mocks 2025 crypto price trends

Markus used a GIF of “Kermit the Frog” falling from a high rooftop to illustrate the price pattern with different crypto assets in 2025. He accompanied the GIF with the words, “Crypto when nearing ATHs in 2025.”

You Might Also Like

The Dogecoin founder’s post suggests he is making fun of the high anticipation most investors in the crypto space feel in bull market cycles. Notably, he is stating that, so far in 2025, crypto assets have consistently disappointed market expectations.

He observed that every time an asset’s price begins to climb toward its all-time high (ATH), instead of breaching the level, it often crashes sharply. Markus has constantly shared his thoughts on staying afloat in the crypto space, especially during rough times.

Markus could be using humor to pass on a message to investors in the crypto market. That is, investors should expect sudden downturns, as volatility is part of the crypto space. In past cycles, there has always been volatility, profit-taking and psychological resistance around ATHs.

Crypto collapse near ATH frustrates investors

Reacting to the post, a user, “Alpha Doge,” agreed with Markus’ stance and highlighted his frustration with the nose-dive pattern each time the price is nearing an ATH.  He believed that crypto assets appear to be deliberately trying to drive investors over the edge.

You Might Also Like

Billy Markus’s message and general crypto market outlook highlight the need for traders not to get too comfortable with predictions. This is because crypto remains a volatile asset class.

For instance, Ethereum (ETH), the leading altcoin, has in the last seven days inched close to the ATH of $4,891.70 set in November 2021. However, it only managed to hit $4,761 before it came crashing to its current price of $4,260.93.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
CoinDesk News Image
GameFi Guides

Tourist Wallet Rolls Out, With Crypto Link Still Stuck in Sandbox

by admin



Thailand introduced its Tourist Wallet for foreign-currency-to-baht QR payments, but the crypto conversion feature is suspended pending a regulatory review through mid-August.

The Bank of Thailand said the Tourist Wallet is meant to solve a practical problem: Cross-border QR links are only live with eight partner countries including Singapore, Malaysia and, soon, China via UnionPay. Travelers from elsewhere still face friction when paying in Thailand, something the new wallet aims to address.

Tourists will be able to top up their wallets with cash at provider counters, foreign debit and credit cards, or overseas bank transfers. Spending caps apply: 500,000 baht ($13,800) a month for merchants with card terminals and 50,000 baht for small shops. Cash withdrawals are prohibited, and accounts can be closed only through redemption.

The crypto angle, however, remains conditional. The country’s Securities and Exchange Commission is testing whether regulated exchanges and custodians can safely let foreign tourists convert crypto into baht balances for use in the Tourist Wallet.

The scheme would require full passport-based know-your-customer identification (KYC), with regulators citing concerns over mule accounts and money laundering. Until the regulatory review process, called a sandbox, closes and regulators publish results, currently scheduled for later this month, crypto holders won’t be able to spend directly.

For now, the Tourist Wallet is a fiat play dressed in QR code convenience, with crypto adoption still pending the outcome of the sandbox process.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Decrypt logo
NFT Gaming

New York Crypto Tax Could Generate $158 Million a Year, Says Lawmaker

by admin



In brief

  • New York State Assemblymember Phil Steck proposed a 0.2% excise tax on cryptocurrency transactions.
  • He estimates that the tax would generate $158 million annually, based on Chainalysis data from 2022 to 2023 and recent GDP statistics.
  • The revenue would help combat substance abuse in upstate New York.

New York Assemblymember Phil Steck introduced legislation on Wednesday that would generate sweeping tax revenues from cryptocurrency transactions across the state.

Under Bill A0966, the Empire State would immediately impose a 0.2% excise tax on crypto transactions, using the proceeds to help schools combat substance abuse in upstate New York, where the opioid epidemic has severely impacted communities for years.

In a bill memo shared with Decrypt on Friday, Steck estimated that the levy would generate $158 million in annual revenue from “crypto investors [that] are driven by a single motive: the desire for quick and instant wealth.”

“The funding shall be used to expand the substance abuse prevention and intervention program to schools in upstate New York,” a separate description of the bill states.



Steck, a Democrat, chairs New York’s Standing Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, and the group oversees the state’s Office of Addiction Service and Supports, which serves over 730,000 individuals per year, according to an annual report. In 2023, 33 out of every 100,000 New Yorkers lost their lives to drug overdoses, the report notes.

The legislation comes as some states push forward with other crypto-related initiatives to assist schools as well, like Wyoming, where cash generated by the reserves of its soon-to-be-released stablecoin will get swept into the Cowboy State’s education fund.

As of 2023, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were treated as cash equivalents for tax purposes in New York, among seven other states, including California, according to Bloomberg Tax. A more recent tax guide from crypto accounting software firm Bitwave says that digital assets are already subject, like other assets, to capital gains tax, gift tax, and estate tax in New York.

In its initial form, the scope of Steck’s bill is broad, with tax implications for NFTs, digital assets obtained through mining and staking, as well as stablecoins, based on its text.

The New York Department of Financial Services, which regulates crypto firms through its BitLicense regime, would not provide Steck with data on the volume of crypto transactions, his memo notes. In a quarterly report, the regulator said it supervised 845 million transactions across 20 total institutions in 2024, but did not include the dollar amount.

The data likely doesn’t capture residents’ crypto transactions as well, so Steck found a workaround: He took the dollar-value of cryptocurrency that crypto analytics firm Chainalysis said was sent to the U.S. between July 2022 and June 2023, roughly $1 trillion, and adjusted that based on New York’s share of U.S. GDP in 2024, yielding $79 billion.

That number could be higher, with New York City serving as the epicenter of the financial world and home to a growing number of crypto-native firms like stablecoin issuer Circle, crypto exchange Gemini, and institutional firm Galaxy Digital.

Steck highlights scrutiny that the digital assets industry faced following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in 2022, saying it has been “vulnerable to fraud and scams.” The memo lists Gemini, among other firms, as companies that were accused of defrauding clients.

Decrypt reached out to Gemini for comment, but did not receive a response.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James recovered $50 million worth of digital assets from Gemini through a settlement last year, after accusing the exchange of misleading investors about risks associated with its Earn platform.

In 2023, James brought a lawsuit against the exchange, bankrupt crypto lender Genesis, and crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group for allegedly defrauding 230,000 investors out of more than $1 billion.

Steck’s memo also highlights the enormous amount of energy that computers consume when participating in the process of mining, or validating Bitcoin transactions, describing the environmental impacts of cryptocurrencies as “another downside.”

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
XRP Slips Below $3 as Nearly $500 Million Worth of Crypto Gets Liquidated
NFT Gaming

XRP Slips Below $3 as Nearly $500 Million Worth of Crypto Gets Liquidated

by admin


  • Longs getting wiped out 
  • Key level to hold 

XRP, one of the top altcoins by market cap, slipped to an intraday low of $2.96 earlier this Monday. 

The token has hit its lowest level since Aug. 6 as bulls struggle to regain their momentum. 

XRP/USD by TradingView 

CoinGecko data shows that XRP is currently the second worst-performing token in the top 10 with a 24-hour drop of more than 4%. Only Solana (SOL) has underperformed it, plunging by as much as 5%. 

The entire cryptocurrency market is currently under substantial selling pressure, with Bitcoin also taking a significant hit. 

Longs getting wiped out 

Earlier this Friday, the top cryptocurrency came awfully close to dropping below the $115,000 level, registering an intraday low of $115,059.

According to CoinGlass, a whopping $464.70 million worth of crypto has been liquidated over the past 24 hours. Long positions account for the lion’s share of this wipeout ($380 million).

Key level to hold 

As reported by U.Today, $2.81 is viewed as the crucial level for the leading cryptocurrency to hold since roughly 1.7 billion tokens had been accumulated there. 

XRP is currently changing hands at $2.98 on the Bitstamp exchange. 



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Nikhilesh De
Crypto Trends

State of Crypto: Do Kwon Pleads Guilty

by admin



Terra/Luna creator Do Kwon pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiring to commit fraud and one charge of wire fraud on Tuesday, following an earlier not guilty plea and a very lengthy extradition process.

You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.

The narrative

Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon, who created the TerraUSD stablecoin and its counterpart Luna (LUNA) token, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities, commodities or wire fraud and wire fraud

Why it matters

Terra and its related ecosystem blew up in spectacular fashion in 2022, with Luna falling from an all-time high price of nearly $120 to less than 10 cents over the course of five weeks. UST broke its peg, and the event was the first domino in the various other crypto company bankruptcies over the course of 2022.

Breaking it down

In 2021, Do Kwon repeatedly assured investors that Terra and Luna were safe investments, through tweets and appearances on programs like CoinDesk TV.

On Tuesday, he apologized as part of his guilty plea.

“Between 2018 and 2022 in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, I knowingly agreed with others to engage in a scheme to defraud, and did in fact defraud, purchasers of the cryptocurrencies issued by my company, Terraform Labs,” he said, going on to say he made “false and misleading statements” about why UST regained its peg.

As part of his plea deal, the Department of Justice agreed to recommend a prison sentence of no more than 12 years, and Kwon can apply for an international prison transfer once he’s served 50% of his sentence. One of Kwon’s attorneys noted that there are still outstanding charges against him in South Korea, the country Kwon tried to get himself extradited to during his extended stay in Montenegro.

Kwon’s statement spoke to that: “The purchasers who I defrauded were in the Republic of Korea, the Southern District of New York and elsewhere,” he said.

Read more.

Tuesday

  • 14:30 UTC (10:30 a.m. ET) Do Kwon pled guilty to two charges tied to the operation and eventual collapse of the Terra/Luna stablecoin ecosystem.
  • (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals) Two judges on a three-judge appeals court panel ruled that a district court did not have appropriate jurisdiction in blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the size of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, writing in part that, “The plaintiffs point to no regulation, order, document, email, or other statement, written or oral, purporting to shut down the CFPB” and that “the government does not claim the power to ‘shut down’ the CFPB.” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a tweet afterward that the circuit court had “sided with my [Department of Justice] attorneys in our effort to dismantle the CFPB.” The circuit court panel did open the door for a potential en banc hearing with the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • (The Washington Post) The White House removed IRS Commissioner Billy Long after he clashed with the White House over sharing confidential taxpayer information, the Post reported. CNN also reported that the IRS did start “sharing sensitive taxpayer data [last] week with immigration authorities.”
  • (The Associated Press) States are starting to take action against the possibility that Big Tech firms’ datacenters are driving up residents’ electricity prices.
  • (Bloomberg) Bloomberg published an analysis of Tron creator Justin Sun on its Billionaires Index, saying he owns over 60 billion TRX (~$4.9 billion) — “the majority of its supply” — as well as $3.55 billion in other crypto holdings and $3.73 billion in HTX holdings. Sun filed for a temporary restraining order to block publication (although the page was already published), with exhibits confirming that his team shared wallet addresses and other information with Bloomberg to help the news organization verify his holdings.
  • (Politico) The fallout from the hack of the federal court database system PACER continues.
  • (Reuters) Reuters has a detailed report out about Meta’s artificial intelligence policies, from large language model chatbots inviting people to real addresses to enabling these technical models to engage with minors using language that seems to be more suitable for people who aren’t minors. Some of these provisions were changed after Reuters asked about them, the news organization reported.
  • (New York Magazine) This is a lengthy and bonkers deep dive into two individuals accused of kidnapping an Italian crypto investor in New York. It is well worth your time to read.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.

See ya’ll next week!



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Decrypt logo
GameFi Guides

Gemini Plans to Go Public via Nasdaq as Crypto IPOs Boom

by admin



Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini announced Friday that it has submitted a public S-1 filing with the SEC to launch a planned initial public offering, two months after previously revealing a confidential filing with the regulator.

Gemini, which was founded in 2014 by billionaire Bitcoin investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss—perhaps best known for their role in the creation of Facebook—plans to list via the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker GEMI.

Details on the number of shares to be offered or the price range have yet to be announced. Similarly, no timeline for the planned IPO has been shared as of yet.



Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Cantor will serve as lead bookrunners, according to a press release, along with several additional bookrunners. Academy Securities and AmeriVet Securities will be co-managers.

The initial confidential SEC filing came soon after the blockbuster IPO of USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, which saw its share price almost immediately triple from the $31 offering mark after trading began in June. It went on to peak at approximately $299, though shares in CRCL have since settled to a price of $149 as of Friday’s markets close.

We saw a similar appetite for crypto IPOs just this week when Bullish, a crypto exchange focused on institutional investors, saw its share price more than triple from the $37 offering mark on the first day of trading. BLSH traded hands at just under $70 at the close of trading Friday.

Crypto firms like OKX, Grayscale, and Kraken have also signaled plans to go public, while major crypto-centric public companies like Coinbase and Strategy have set records in recent weeks.

The regulatory environment has dramatically improved for crypto since President Trump returned to the White House in January, with the SEC abandoning nearly all of its lawsuits against crypto firms and Trump signing the GENIUS Act stablecoin bill into law last month.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Is Tether building ‘Fed of crypto’ with sovereign-sized reserves?
NFT Gaming

Tether builds ‘Fed of crypto’ with sovereign-sized reserves

by admin



Tether’s latest reserves report reveals a stablecoin issuer operating on a scale typically reserved for nations.

According to its Q2 2025 attestation from BDO, the company holds $162.57 billion in assets, surpassing its liabilities of $157.11 billion, resulting in a $ 5.46 billion surplus. This cushion, above what’s needed to redeem all tokens, is rare in the stablecoin market—and almost unheard of in crypto.

Recent data from Messari highlights Tether’s scale: with $127 billion in U.S. Treasuries, it now holds more than South Korea, Germany, and the UAE, ranking as the 18th largest holder of U.S. government debt globally.

Tether is the only private entity in this league, positioned between Saudi Arabia and several G20 nations.

A balance sheet that looks like a central bank’s

Side by side, Tether’s reserves and the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet share a surprisingly similar structure — despite a 40x size gap.

CATEGORYTETHERFEDERAL RESERVETotal Assets$162.6B$6.64TCore Holdings$105.5B U.S. Treasuries$4.77T U.S. Treasuries & Agency MBSAlternative Assets$8.9B Bitcoin, $8.7B GoldNoneOther Investments$4.8B Other, $10.1B Secured Loans$2.4T Loans, facilities, otherCash & Short-Term Instruments$16.3B reverse repos, $6.3B money market funds~ $0.3T reverse reposEquity/Surplus$5.47B (3.4% of assets)N/A (Fed remits excess to Treasury)

  • U.S. Treasuries are the backbone for both — $105.5 billion for Tether, $4.77 trillion for the Fed.
  • Short-term liquidity instruments, such as reverse repos and money market funds, play a similar stabilizing role.
  • The difference is in diversification: Tether keeps $8.9 billion in Bitcoin and $8.7 billion in gold — a blend of digital and hard assets no major central bank holds.

At first glance, comparing Tether’s surplus to the Federal Reserve’s resources might seem like a stretch — the Fed’s balance sheet is vastly larger. But the analogy works because the two operate under fundamentally different rules.

The Fed doesn’t keep a surplus: any net income it earns is remitted to the U.S. Treasury, so it doesn’t build an equity buffer. Tether does — and that $5.47 billion represents about 3.4% of its total assets, a stronger equity position than many banks maintain under Basel III capital standards. 

Tether also distributed $7.357 billion in dividends during the first half of the year — a payout size that underscores both its profitability and the scale of its operations.

For the stablecoin market, it’s unprecedented. By comparison, Circle’s USDC reserves — $55.7 billion as of Aug. 7 — are structured for near one-to-one matching between assets and liabilities. The Circle Reserve Fund, managed by BlackRock, holds about 60% in U.S. Treasury repurchase agreements and 39% in U.S. Treasury debt, leaving only a modest equity buffer compared to Tether’s sovereign-sized cushion.

It’s precisely the kind of monetary backstop central banks aim for to absorb shocks without destabilizing their currency — positioning Tether as a central clearinghouse of dollar liquidity in crypto.

The El Salvador move and regulatory posture

In January 2025, Tether shifted its base from the British Virgin Islands to El Salvador — the only country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender — after securing a Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) license. It still maintains its Money Services Business (MSB) registration with the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), obligating it to comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) rules, including filing Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs).

This dual stance — operating from a Bitcoin-forward jurisdiction while maintaining U.S. compliance channels — demonstrates Tether’s positioning at the intersection of crypto-friendly regulation and global financial oversight.

Why this matters for stablecoins

If Tether is the “crypto Fed,” its surplus is the closest thing to a monetary policy safety net in the stablecoin market. It allows Tether to absorb shocks without immediately tapping into its reserves, and it gives the company the firepower to invest in infrastructure, strategic partnerships, and even non-crypto sectors without threatening redemption guarantees.

In traditional finance, central banks exist to backstop liquidity and maintain confidence. In crypto, Tether is doing both — privately, at scale, and with an asset mix more diversified than most national treasuries. The bigger question is whether this model becomes the template for the next generation of stablecoins, or whether Tether will remain the outlier that built the Fed of crypto before anyone else could.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Decrypt logo
NFT Gaming

Stablecoin Boom Has Made Crypto Ramps ‘Sexier’ M&A Targets, Says VanEck VC

by admin



In brief

  • On- and off-ramp companies are attractive M&A targets, according to VanEck Ventures’ Juan Lopez.
  • They are increasingly being viewed as valuable touch points for facilitating payments through stablecoins, he said.
  • In the past, they were viewed primarily as a way to fund crypto exchange accounts.

Companies that serve as connective tissue between digital assets and legacy payments systems are getting a glow-up from stablecoins this year, according to VanEck Ventures Managing Partner Juan Lopez.

As companies continue to explore new use cases with dollar-pegged tokens, those that help customers swap between cash and crypto are becoming some of the hottest targets for mergers and acquisitions, he told Decrypt in a recent interview.

Although they were mostly perceived as a way to let customers easily purchase crypto in the past, Lopez said that on-and-off ramps are increasingly being viewed as valuable touch points for facilitating everyday transactions through stablecoins.

“On-and-off ramp companies initially were the ones that were connecting the legacy payment systems with the sort of blockchain-adjacent systems that exchanges pioneered,” he said. “Now they can go from simply calling themselves on-and-off ramps to full-fledged payments providers built on this really novel infrastructure, which is a lot sexier.”

With last month’s passage of stablecoin legislation in the U.S., experts anticipate an explosion of stablecoins under the GENIUS Act. With a federal framework in place, Citigroup said this week that it’s exploring a stablecoin, months after Bank of America signaled the same.

Lopez said that stablecoins emerged within the crypto industry primarily as a way for exchanges to overcome long settlement times that customers faced when funding accounts, but experimentation has pushed their utility far beyond that.

“On-and-off ramps have been a large driver for some of the new use cases that we hear around stablecoins,” he said, pointing to cross-border remittances and business-to-business payments.



Earlier this year, crypto payments service MoonPay acquired Helio and Unstoppable Finance, “underscoring the vision for crypto payments,” according to a report from Architect Partners.

The move followed payment giant Stripe’s acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge last year, one of the largest deals in the industry’s history valued at $1.1 billion.

Ripple said earlier this month that it would purchase Rail, a Toronto-based payments platform, for $200 million. Ripple highlighted the firm’s ability to offer “comprehensive stablecoin pay-ins and pay-outs” without requiring a company to hold crypto on its balance sheet.

Lopez noted that the licenses on-and-off ramp companies own could be a factor as well, letting companies expand into new businesses or jurisdictions than they could otherwise.

“It’s really a time-to-market value,” he said. “If there’s a particular player that wants to enter a particular business, they can do so much faster they can acquire a business that’s gone through all the regulatory hurdles to actually be licensed to operate.”

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Close