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Cryptocurrency firm MoonPay receives investments from Justin Bieber, Bruce Willis, and Maria Sharapova, among others

Cryptocurrency payment platform MoonPay recently announced that it has raised $87 million from around 60 A-list celebrities. Investors include singers like Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg, tennis player Maria Sharapova, and actors like Bruce Willis, Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow.

In raising funds, MoonPay attempted to expand the role of non-fungible tokens by increasing fan engagement through content creation. MoonPay got 16% of the funding from celebrities alone.

MoonPay raised a total of $555 million in Series A funding, led by Tiger Global Management and Coatue Management, in November of last year. At the current time, the cryptocurrency startup is valued at $3.4 billion after the completion of the recent funding round.

Other celebrities on MoonPay’s investment list

Other investors in the cryptocurrency company include Drake, Eva Longoria, Jason Derulo, Kate Hudson, Paris Hilton, Matthew McConaughey, Mindy Kaling, Questlove and Shawn Mendes, The Chainsmokers, among many other influential investors.

MoonPay was founded in 2018, the company is based in Miami. The cryptocurrency platform allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods such as debit cards, credit cards, and bank transfers or even mobile wallets.

The platform also accepts payments through Google Pay and Apple Pay. MoonPay, which also provides payment infrastructure for crypto and NFT transactions, facilitates transactions between individuals and crypto businesses and has sold its technology to Bitcoin.com and NFT marketplace OpenSea.

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Cash App Offers Payments in Bitcoin, BTC Roundup and Lightning Network Services

At the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Block, Inc., formerly Square, Inc., announced three new bitcoin services for the company’s mobile payment platform. The Cash App mobile payment platform will feature a “bitcoin payment” service that allows users to automatically invest their work payment in bitcoin.

Cash App adds 3 new Bitcoin services

Jack Dorsey’s Block announced in Miami that the Cash App mobile payment system will offer three new features. The San Francisco company explained that the first feature will be a “bitcoin payment” service that allows people to convert their payment into bitcoin (BTC).

Cash App users will be able to convert 1% or even 100% of their payroll into the main crypto asset. The Block, who also runs Spiral, TIDAL and TBD, explained at the conference that the team has been working on the idea since 2019.

The next service the company unveiled was a bitcoin rounding service that basically allows Cash App users to round up change for bitcoin (BTC) purchases. Essentially, transactions from the user’s Cash App card will round up purchases and automatically transfer the change to the user’s BTC wallet.

Block is not the first company to introduce bitcoin payment services or BTC rounding services, as the concepts have been around for some time. For example, people can also leverage Coinbase or Bitwage to receive cryptocurrency payments, and Bundil and Roundlyx offer round-up BTC products.

The third Cash App feature announced at the Miami Bitcoin conference was “Lightning Network (LN) Reception” with a seamless Bitcoin user experience. Bitcoin UX will leverage unified QR codes using the Bitcoin BIP 21 improvement proposal.

The QR code can combine Lightning Network invoices and on-chain information to make the process easier for Cash App users. The Cash App has already enabled LN payments since its introduction in January, but now users can take advantage of receiving unified QR codes to accept LN payments directly. The Cash App move follows Atlanta-based payment processor Bitpay, which announced support for LN on Wednesday.

Recent breach leaves 8 million Cash app customers exposed

Cash App news follows the company’s troubles with a former employee causing a massive data breach. Reports show that 8 million Cash App users were affected as the former employee was accused of downloading information linked to customers in December.

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MasterCard to incubate NFT-focused startups bitsCrunch through its “Start Path” startup engagement program

bitsCrunch, the India and Germany-based blockchain analytics company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to secure and secure the NFT ecosystem, has revealed that it has been selected to participate in the pledge program. MasterCard called The MasterCard Home Path.

Designed to help post-escalation startups, the Start Path Program offers an extended suite of products that help startups reach a global consumer base. With MasterCard rapidly expanding into the cryptocurrency ecosystem, the Start Path program focuses beyond payment solutions, covering diverse areas such as fintech, blockchain, e-commerce, AI, fraud prevention, financial inclusion and more.

In the Start Path program, all selected projects gain full access to MasterCard’s ready-to-integrate fintech APIs, tools and solutions, as well as the opportunity to present their ideas to MasterCard’s global network of consumers, merchants and partners.

According to Vijay Pravin Maharajan, CEO of bitsCrunch, “With advanced technology tools, an incredible team and industry experience, bitsCrunch ensures consistent quality and security in digital asset startups. Collaborating with MasterCard Start Path helps us provide best-in-class solutions for emerging customers in the cryptocurrency industry and transform business landscapes. In addition, we are pleased that bitsCrunch will be joining the MasterCard Start Path program soon.”

BitCrunch’s main goals align with MasterCard’s goals of fraud prevention, financial inclusion and several other areas. BitCrunch currently offers a wide range of products, each designed to address the persistent challenges of the NFT ecosystem, including laundering trading, counterfeiting, and inefficient asset valuation, among others. By leveraging MasterCard’s infrastructure and global reach, bitsCrunch will be able to further expand its presence in the mainstream economy.

At the same time, MasterCard can leverage bitsCrunch to give its users direct access to the NFT ecosystem. The platform’s range of products will help non-crypto MasterCard users easily find, value and invest in NFTs and other digital assets. Using bitsCrunch’s trio of NFT security services (Scour, Liquify and Crunch DaVinci) along with its fast, accurate and reliable analytics services, MasterCard can ensure its global customers can make well-informed business decisions across a wide range of asset.

bitsCrunch analytics products and services run on some of today’s top blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum, Avalanche, Polkadot, and Polygon. The platform recently raised $3.6 million from leading investment firms like Polygon Studios, Coinbase Ventures, Crypto.com Capital, Spark Digital, Bison Funds and Gravity X, to name a few. According to the bitsCrunch team’s tweet, these funds will help secure a presence on other prominent blockchains like Algorand, Solana, and others.

Emphasizing the need for credibility for widespread adoption of digital assets, a spokesperson for the MasterCard Start Path Program team notes, “With MasterCard, startups around the world can build platforms on open banking, predictive finance models for small businesses, more. Partnering with bitsCrunch allows companies to access MasterCard’s global ecosystem and reach new audiences through MasterCard customers. The collaboration will provide safe and secure transactions, which will increase brand credibility.”

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Coinbase to Sign Spree Amid New Push to Expand in Indian Market

Leading US crypto exchange Coinbase is making a new push to expand its presence in India with plans for a major signing wave.

In a new blog post, CEO Brian Armstrong points out how Coinbase Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm, has already invested $150 million in Indian tech companies in the cryptocurrency and web3 space.

Now the exchange plans to quadruple its presence in the country, adding 1,000 new full-time employees to its current headcount of 300.

Armstrong says,

“Coinbase’s Indian tech hub was launched last year and already has more than 300 full-time employees across the state and regions of India. We are excited to harness the dynamic talent of Indian software to develop our products and will continue to invest heavily in our hub in India. We have ambitious plans for India and are looking to hire over 1,000 people at our India hub this year alone.”

In a blog post in February, Nana Murugesan, Vice President of International and Business Development at Coinbase, announced the company’s plans for rapid global expansion.

As part of Coinbase’s plans to establish itself in India, the exchange has made investments in cryptocurrency platforms CoinSwitch Kuber and CoinDCX. Murugesan also listed the top three markets Coinbase had its eye on expanding into.

“An important first step in our strategy is recruiting experienced regional and country leaders from around the world. We are now embarking on a broad global expansion strategy, with hiring and investment plans to enter these markets, which will allow Coinbase to serve customers more locally:

Americas — Latin America, Canada

EMEA: Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa

APAC — South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania, North and East Asia”
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Rio de Janeiro Permits BTC Payments for Real Estate Taxes

If you’re a bitcoin lover and you own real estate in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, there’s a good chance you’re feeling pretty lucky right about now. The city government has announced that those who own real estate in Rio de Janeiro can pay their real estate taxes with bitcoin and other forms of crypto.
Rio de Janeiro Is Pushing Crypto Forward

The move is proof, once again, that Latin America and crypto appear to go hand in hand. Several countries in that neck of the woods, over the past few years, have done quite a bit to not only legalize crypto but push for higher usage, and now Rio de Janeiro is taking a huge step forward in making the initial goals of digital currency become realities.

While bitcoin and many of its altcoin cousins have taken on very speculative shapes over the past few years, it’s easy to forget that a lot of these assets were initially designed to be used for purchasing goods and services. They were designed to serve as payment methods that would push checks, credit cards, and fiat currencies to the side, but this has been a slow journey given how volatile they are. Many businesses and institutions, as a result, are reluctant to say “yes” when it comes to accepting crypto payments, and to a certain extent, we can understand why.

Consider the following scenario: a person walks into a business and purchases $50 worth of items with bitcoin. For one reason or another, the organization does not convert the BTC into fiat right away. 24 hours go by, and the price of bitcoin drops, causing that $50 to turn into $40. While the customer gets to keep everything they bought, the company has lost money. Is this fair? Not everyone thinks so.

Thanks to Rio de Janeiro and its regulators, the push for crypto payments just got a lot stronger. The acceptance of crypto for real estate taxes is occurring through a joint effort between Binance – the largest and most popular digital currency exchange in the world – and Eduardo Paes, the mayor of the city. In an interview, the chief executive officer of Binance Changpeng Zhao explained:

He (Mayor Paes) has done his share and we are doing ours.

Binance Will Help Out

City officials also took the time to chime in, claiming:

To facilitate the operation, the municipality will contract with firms that specialize in converting cryptocurrency to reais. In this manner, city hall will receive the whole amount in money.

Rio de Janeiro, despite its good intentions, still has quite a way to go if it’s going to compete with other Latin American nations such as El Salvador, which has done all it can to put bitcoin on the map. The country declared BTC legal tender last September and hasn’t looked back.