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Payments Giant MoneyGram Enables Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) Trading on App

Payments company MoneyGram is rolling out a new service that allows consumers to buy, sell and hold crypto assets using the company’s mobile app.

In a statement, the money transfer giant says the MoneyGram app’s crypto trading feature will support Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) and is now available to customers in nearly all US states and the District of Columbia.

Says MoneyGram chairman and CEO Alex Holmes,

“We see crypto and digital currencies as another input and output option. As a next step in the evolution of MoneyGram, we’re thrilled to provide our customers with access to a trusted and easy-to-use platform to securely buy, sell and hold select cryptocurrencies.”

The company is bringing the new service to its customers with the help of the crypto exchange CoinMe. The two companies have been working together since 2021 when MoneyGram teamed up with CoinMe to enable customers to buy Bitcoin using fiat currency and convert the digital coin to cash at its physical locations in the US.

In June, MoneyGram also launched a new service in key remittance markets, including the Philippines, US, Canada and Kenya, to bridge fiat money and cryptocurrencies using payments blockchain Stellar (XLM) and the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC).

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Moneygram allows customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through its money transfer app

Moneygram has launched a new cryptocurrency service to allow customers to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies using its mobile money transfer app. Initially, three cryptocurrencies are supported, including bitcoin and ethereum.

Moneygram’s New Encryption Service

Moneygram International Inc. (Nasdaq: MGI) announced the launch of a new cryptocurrency service on Tuesday. Moneygram’s official Twitter account tweeted:

Moneygram announces the launch of a new service that allows consumers to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies through the Moneygram app. This feature gives customers in almost all US states the ability to exchange and store BTC, ETH and LTC.

The company is expected to expand its selection of supported cryptocurrencies in 2023, the announcement adds. According to Moneygram, the new service is available in all US states (except Hawaii, Idaho and New York) and the District of Columbia.

“Moneygram allows instant access to over 120 currencies around the world, and we see cryptocurrencies and digital currencies as another entry and exit option,” said the company’s President and CEO Alex Holmes. He continued:

As consumer interest in digital currencies continues to accelerate, we are uniquely positioned to meet this demand and bridge the gap between blockchain and traditional financial services.

Moneygram describes itself as “a global leader in the evolution of P2P digital payments” and “a pioneering leader in blockchain-enabled settlement and cross-border payment innovation”. The company says it has served more than 150 million people in the last five years.

The ability to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies using the Moneygram money transfer app is made possible by the company’s existing partnership with Coinme, a US-licensed cryptocurrency exchange.

The two companies announced a partnership in May last year “to enable cash financing and payment for purchases and sales in digital currency”. Coinme’s website claims the service is “available at 12,000 Moneygram locations”. In January of this year, Moneygram announced that it had “completed a strategic minority investment in Coinme”, giving the money transfer company an approximately 4% stake in the cryptocurrency exchange.

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Nigerian central bank steps up plans to introduce newly designed Naira banknotes

On October 29, Nigeria’s central bank was forced to defend its controversial currency overhaul plans, just days after Nigeria’s Finance Minister Zainab Ahmad publicly questioned them. The central bank insists the move is overdue and urged Nigerians to “support the currency redesign project, which is in the general interest of all citizens of the country”.

Written approval by President Muhammadu Buhari

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has insisted that its recently announced plan to issue newly designed naira banknotes is legitimate and is 12 years overdue. In an apparent rebuke to Nigeria’s Finance Minister Zainab Ahmad, who publicly questioned the plan, the central bank said it had “obtained written approval from President Muhammadu Buhari to redesign it”.

Addressing lawmakers a day after the surprise CBN announcement, Ahmad reportedly said she had not been consulted and therefore could not comment “on the merits or not”. As Bitcoin.com News recently reported, CBN’s plan to introduce newly designed naira banknotes is believed to have caused the local currency’s parallel market exchange rate to drop, where it hit a new all-time low against the dollar. from N781: $1.

Opponents of the controversial CBN plan insist that going ahead with the change could see the naira to dollar exchange rate fall to 1,000 naira to the dollar by the end of January 31, 2023. However, in a defiant statement issued in October 29, 2022, CBN urged Nigerians to support currency redraw policy.

“The CBN urges Nigerians to support the currency redesign project, which is in the general interest of all citizens of the country. Hoarding significant amounts of banknotes outside commercial bank vaults should be discouraged by anyone with good intentions for the country,” the central bank said.

Currency redraws a global pattern

CBN added that it “took a long time considering he had to wait 20 years to carry out a redesign”. The statement also echoes the bank’s previous claims that the circulation of the redesigned naira is standard practice globally that must be carried out every five to eight years.

The planned injection of new 100, 200, 500 and 1,000 naira notes into circulation is scheduled to start on December 15th. Nigerians are expected to return the old banknotes by the end of January 2023. While critics of the currency redesign plan have urged the CBN to either extend the deadline or abandon the plan altogether, the latest local reports quote President Buhari expressing support.

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Flipkart, the Indian commerce giant, will allow customers to buy items in the metaverse

Flipkart, the Walmart-backed Indian e-commerce giant, has launched a pilot program to let its customers experience shopping in a metaverse environment. The company announced the launch of its own metaverse, called Flipverse, in which different brands will be able to offer their own shopping experiences.

Flipkart to Launch Flipverse: A Shopping Metaverse

Flipkart, one of the largest e-commerce companies based in India, has announced that it will test its own shopping experience in the metaverse. Called Flipverse, this metaverse will allow customers to experience shopping as if they were physically present in an online store through their smartphone.

According to the company, the experience wants to bring gamification and loyalty points to the shopping experience, allowing customers to accumulate supercoins and digital collectibles from different brands that are already accredited to be part of this pilot program.

To create the new platform, Flipkart partnered with eDAO, a company incubated by Polygon, to prepare the metaverse experience for launch this month. The company has already signed up several key partners, including Puma, Noise, Nivea, Lavie, Tokyo Talkies, Campus, VIP, Ajmal Perfumes, and Himalaya, who will be able to offer their own custom booths and experiences in the Flipkart metaverse.

A Flipkart executive stated:

The idea is to get millions of users to experience Flipverse and open the door to the future of shopping. Fifteen years ago, we were the first Indian company to launch Web 2.0-based commerce. And I feel that today we are the first company to launch Web 3.0 commerce.

Retail and the metaverse

While metaverse retail experiences have been fairly limited so far, with video from 2017 resurfacing this year showing an example of how shopping would be done in a hypothetical Walmart-themed metaverse, Flipkart and Polygon believe there is a great opportunity in the future for that. type of virtual shopping experience.

Sandeep Narwal, co-founder of Polygon, stated:

While we're just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible in the metaverse, we see e-commerce as one of the defining use cases. Combining top brands with Flipkart's eCommerce expertise in a virtual environment revolutionizes online retail as we know it.

Walmart, which owns 72% of Flipkart, already made its first metaverse move into the Roblox universe in September, launching two experiences called “Walmart Land” and “Walmart’s Universe of Play.”

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Are cryptocurrency trading bots a scam?

Scam is such a strong word in today’s world. Why is this the case? It is because scams are rampant in every corner of the world and in every industry where finance is involved. Unfortunately, bad actors are actively working to trick people into stealing their funds, as the cryptocurrency community has witnessed in recent months.

Millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies have been stolen by digital hackers, mainly due to weaknesses in specific dApps or various bridging protocols. Scammers have scoured Twitter and other social apps like Telegram and Discord to steal people’s crypto, claiming it’s the latest and greatest project, only to end up stealing their ETH.

Are cryptocurrency trading bots similar or the same as a hack or a scam? It’s time to take a moment and dig a little deeper into this topic.

How to identify a scam

There is a fine line between a hoax and a legitimate project. How is this line? Scams are often portrayed as too good to be true, or too good to pass up.

If a project promises the moon, it’s time to step back and do more research. Offers of free tokens or large airdrops should be accepted with caution. Legitimate gifts do exist, but with reputable companies that have a proven track record.

Scams usually don’t show the faces or names of the people working on the “project”. If someone isn’t searchable on LinkedIn or Twitter, that’s a big red flag. Be careful when dealing with these so-called “companies” who do not reveal their true identities. If they were legitimate, they would have nothing to hide.

Scams can be easy to detect if the email received or the message read appears to be “spam” in nature. If there are misspellings, grammatical problems, or repetitive language, it is likely a scam and should be ignored.

Can a cryptocurrency trading bot be a scam?

A cryptocurrency trading bot “company” can be a scam, yes. Bots themselves do not have the ability to withdraw funds from a user’s account. Are there bad actors in the cryptocurrency trading bot space? As mentioned above, yes, which is why it is important to do due diligence when selecting a particular company to set up a trading robot.

Most bots on the market today are indeed legitimate, and most of them connect via API to a popular exchange.

How to identify a legitimate cryptocurrency trading robot

Potential crypto bot users are looking for a trusting relationship between them and the company they are going to sign up with. Various ways to detect the legitimacy of a bot can include the following:

exchange associations

customer feedback

verifiable history

performance history

Faces linked to social proof

The above resources will help determine the legitimacy of a cryptocurrency trading bot company. For example, looking at Stoic AI, potential investors can clearly see the features on the main site.