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Visa Launches Bitcoin and Crypto Debit Cards in 40 Countries in Partnership with FTX

The partnership allows FTX Exchange users in 40 countries to easily spend their bitcoins and cryptocurrencies at any merchant that accepts Visa cards.

FTX is launching bitcoin and cryptocurrency-backed debit cards in 40 countries.

The exchange has partnered with Visa and will focus on Latin America, Asia and Europe.

Despite the bear market, Visa believes bitcoin holders still want to use BTC for payments.

Visa has partnered with one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, to launch bitcoin and cryptocurrency debit cards, according to a CNBC report.

The offer will be available to FTX users in more than 40 countries, with a focus on Latin America, Asia and Europe.

Visa, along with its competitors in the market, continues to assert that bitcoin and cryptocurrency users still want to use their holdings as a medium of exchange, even amid a bear market downturn.

“While stocks are down, there is still a steady interest in cryptocurrencies,” said Visa Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu, according to the report.

Debit cards, which are already available in the US, simply connect to the FTX platform, allowing users to spend digital assets in their wallets without the need to withdraw assets from the exchange platform.

“We don’t have a position as a company on what the value of cryptocurrency should be, or if it’s a good thing in the long run — as long as people have things they want to buy, we want to make it easy.” said Prabhu.

Visa’s main competitor, Mastercard, has also partnered with several different companies to offer debit cards that support bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. American Express has also expressed interest in offering a similar product, though its chief executive said it likely wouldn’t be “any time soon”.

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Spanish Football League Laliga partners with Globant to support new Web3 and Metaverse initiatives

Laliga, the top soccer league in Spain, announced a partnership with Globant, an Argentine software giant, to bring Web3 and metaverse experiences to its fans. The association will combine Globant’s technological resources with Laliga’s technology division to create products that expand the organization’s reach in the digital world.

Laliga asks Globant to help him build his metaverse stack

Large sports organizations are approaching the digital world as a way to reach new fans and offer new interaction possibilities for their users. Laliga, the main football league in Spain, recently announced a partnership that will serve to expand the company’s digital reach. The organization has partnered with Globant, a software giant based in Buenos Aires, to create metaverse and Web3 experiences for current fans and new users.

These new additions would complement the current digital offer of Laliga’s technology division, which currently includes fantasy games, web design and development, among other areas. The press release outlining the deal hints at possible game development using these new technologies. However, no specific products were announced directly as a result of the partnership.

Oscar Mayo, CEO of Laliga, stated:

LaLiga Tech was created to help sports and entertainment accelerate their digital transformation, and the increase in demand we have seen shows that it remains a core priority for the industry. Partnering with Globant will allow us to continue this growth on a global scale while creating the most immersive and valuable technologies for our customers.

Laliga metaverse movements

Laliga is one of the sports league organizations that has been making several moves to digitize part of its operations. This month, the company partnered with Ethereum-based metaverse platform Decentraland to offer licensed IP experiences in one of the packages available in its metaverse. In addition, the organization recently launched its own application, called MAS, which includes blockchain technology to protect the identity of its followers.

Additionally, the company is entering the traditional game asset market by offering licensed products in Mojang’s Minecraft block game. In the game, users will be able to purchase a pack of skins to equip any character with jerseys from the different teams present in the Laliga squad.

Laliga has also featured NFT-based projects before. In 2021, it partnered with Dapper Labs, makers of NBA Top Shots and Cryptokitties, to issue NFTs depicting the greatest moments in league history.

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Italian soccer champion AC Milan reveals NFT partnership with MonkeyLeague

Italian soccer club AC Milan has announced a non-fungible token (NFT) partnership with web3 game MonkeyLeague.

MonkeyLeague has become AC Milan’s newest NFT gaming partner

As revealed in a post on the club’s website, AC Milan and MonekyLeague plan to create a variety of non-fungible tokens together as part of the deal.

AC Milan is an Italian football club with one of the richest histories in all of Europe. The team is currently the defending champion of Serie A, the highest league division in the country.

“We are excited to start this partnership with MonkeyLeague, a collaboration that allows us to strengthen our position in the field of digital innovation,” said the Italian club’s chief revenue officer, Casper Stylsvig.

“We are particularly proud to be the first football club to partner with MonkeyLeague, bringing this game to our fans around the world and offering them an innovative new way to interact with their favorite team.”

MonkeyLeague is a web3 soccer game in which users create and manage teams of NFT-based characters and compete against other players to climb the league ranks.

The game is based on the Solana blockchain and uses its own native token called MonkeyBucks for the in-game economy.

As part of the NFT gaming partnership, MonkeyLeague will work closely with the football club to create exclusive AC Milan gaming assets, wearables, special gaming tournaments, co-marketing events and a host of other exciting initiatives. as game tests of the club’s players. .”

The first batch of these collectibles is scheduled to launch on October 6 on the MagicEden marketplace, where the tokens will be sold at auction and awarded to the highest bidder.

Oren Langberg, MonkeyLeague’s director of marketing and partnerships, commented: “Associating with champions like AC Milan, an absolutely iconic club throughout football history, is yet another testament to what we are building and where we are headed. We run as a game studio. games. It also represents a key step in our plans to bridge the Web2 and Web3 worlds.”

Cryptocurrency and NFT-related partnerships like these are nothing new to the world of sports and certainly not new to the Italian club. Last year, Milan signed a sponsorship deal with cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX.

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Digital bank FV Bank integrates USDC stablecoin for direct deposits

In addition to USDC support, FV Bank also plans to launch an escrow service in Q4 2022, targeting major currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Global digital bank FV Bank is the latest financial platform to allow deposits into the Circle-backed USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin.

FV Bank on Wednesday announced the launch of a new service that allows account holders to make direct USDC deposits to bank accounts in US dollars. The new feature allows customers to receive USDC into their accounts in a similar way to traditional deposits such as wire transfers or the automated clearing network.

Per the announcement, received USDC funds are instantly and automatically converted to United States Dollars (USD) at the time of deposit. This new solution allows FV Bank users to issue invoices to their international customers in USDC, enabling faster and cheaper transactions and conversions, the company said.

“We believe this feature will greatly improve the user experience and open up smoother trading,” FV Bank CEO Miles Paschini told Cointelegraph.

Paschini noted that USDC will be the first stablecoin accepted for USD deposit at the moment, but FV Bank may consider more stablecoins in the future.

“We chose USDC because of its license, reserve certifications, and real-time 1:1 liquidity,” noted the CEO.

In addition to integrating USDC, FV Bank also plans to launch its own escrow service in Q4 2022, which will allow customers to hold digital assets in a escrow account alongside their escrow account. According to Paschini, FV Bank custody will support major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and other currencies “based on our supported asset criteria.”

FV Bank is a cryptographic digital bank regulated by the Office of the Financial Institutions Commissioner of Puerto Rico. The company originally planned to launch cryptocurrency custody services in 2021, following the lead of major US banks such as Standard Chartered.

According to the CEO, the company’s cryptocurrency roadmap has not suffered any issues despite the ongoing crypto winter.

“Overall, the bear market has not affected our business as we continue to grow and expand our services responsibly,” said Paschini.

FV Bank is not the only financial institution to join the USDC recently. On Tuesday, cryptocurrency-compatible stock trading app Robinhood announced the USDC listing. The stablecoin will be available for transfer on the Polygon and Ethereum networks today.

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Financial Giant State Street Sees Cryptocurrency Demand From Institutional Investors

Investment management firm State Street says that institutional clients are not deterred from investing in cryptocurrencies despite falling prices. “There is a belief that the asset class is here to stay,” said a State Street executive.

State Street in institutional demand for cryptocurrencies

State Street, a leading investment management firm, sees persistent institutional demand for cryptocurrencies despite market selloffs, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Monday.

Irfan Ahmad, State Street Digital’s product leader for the Asia-Pacific region, said institutional clients of the banking giant are still interested in cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology. He was quoted as saying:

During the June and July period, when things got very hot in terms of activity, we saw institutional clients not necessarily double down, but they weren't really deterred from making strategic bets on the asset class itself.

“The advantage of this is that, I think, there is a belief that the asset class is here to stay,” the executive emphasized.

State Street (NYSE: STT) operates in more than 100 geographic markets globally and employs approximately 40,000 people worldwide. The financial services giant had $38.2 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration and $3.5 trillion in assets under management as of June 30.

The company’s digital arm, State Street Digital, offers solutions for a variety of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, digital money, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), according to its website.

Ahmad noted that several large investment firms such as Goldman Sachs have started offering crypto products and are likely to make more forays into the crypto space. In April, Goldman Sachs offered its first bitcoin-backed loan.

The world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock, launched a private bitcoin fund in August. “Despite the sharp decline in the digital asset market, we are still seeing substantial interest from some institutional clients,” the company said.

The State Street executive further shared that institutional clients inquired about the crypto product launch, explaining:

Certainly our customers have been talking to us more pragmatically about how they can launch products or what our capabilities might be in the future to help them support the launch of those products.

In July of last year, State Street announced the expansion of its cryptocurrency service, citing growing demand for traditional funds.

Cryptocurrency exchanges are also experiencing increasing demand from institutional investors. Bitstamp’s chief executive said in August that his trading platform is seeing “huge interest in crypto” from institutional clients. In June, Binance launched a new platform for VIP and institutional crypto investors to increase support for institutional clients.