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Mastercard Highlights 5 Key Focus Areas In Crypto

Mastercard revealed recently that the company is focusing on five key different crypto areas. The key focus areas it is working on aim to turn cryptocurrencies into an everyday way to pay.

According to Raj Dhamodharan,  Executive Vice President of Digital Asset and Blockchain Products & Digital Partnerships at Mastercard, Mastercard’s five areas of focus are crypto cards, crypto services, payments, crypto on the Mastercard network, metaverse, and NFTs.

Raj Dhamodharan, explained, “Digital assets like cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have the potential to transform the financial system’s infrastructure.”

He further stated that non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain gaming, and metaverse experiences could change how consumers shop and communicate.”

The executive also opined,

“Someday soon, the ability to own and spend a digital currency could be as seamless as making a contactless card payment.”

He explained how Mastercard has already made numerous global announcements about new crypto card initiatives this year. For instance, the payments industry behemoth collaborated with Gemini on a credit card in the United States that offers incentives in cryptocurrency.

Additionally, the business introduced a prepaid card with Binance in Argentina. The first physical debit card in the world that can be personalized to contain a user’s NFT avatar was also just revealed by Mastercard in Europe.

Noting that Mastercard is a provider of cybersecurity, digital ID, advisory and open banking services to tens of thousands of financial institutions, Dhamodharan said the company is going to use the same tools to provide more support to crypto players and issuers.

In addition, Mastercard has expanded its consulting work to include a dedicated crypto practice and it completed the purchase of Ciphertrace last year. The company will soon launch a new crypto monitoring product called Crypto Secure.

Highlighting more about crypto payments Dhamodharan said,  “We’ve partnered with a handful of top-tier crypto-focused companies including Paxos, Circle, Evolve and Uphold to develop ways for people to quickly convert their crypto to fiat to make payments. This work will support current and future crypto card partnerships.” 

About crypto on the Mastercard networks, Dhamodharan emphasized, “An important way to expand choice for people is to bring certain Mastercard-approved digital assets onto our networks, a plan we announced last year that continues to move forward.”

Dhamodharan explained that Mastercard is working to grow its partnerships to support NFTs and the metaverse. For example, Coinbase users can now pay for NFTs with Mastercard.

In conclusion, the Mastercard executive noted that the payments giant already operates a trusted global network that enables payments with a single tap or click.

He concluded, “That’s what the crypto economy needs to support the next million users or the next billion. We’re excited to prioritize these core areas to give people more access to the crypto ecosystem and help it keep innovating and growing.”

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Business

Crypto.com Unveils Paris As Its New European Regional HQ

Crypto companies and exchanges are rapidly growing. Companies are attempting to attract people from all around the world as the usage of cryptocurrencies increases globally.

Platforms around the industry have begun to recognize promise in the European area after concentrating on Asia for a considerable amount of time. In an effort to get the endorsement of regional regulators, Crypto.com has been traveling around Europe. More recently, the company was able to secure a favorable response from French officials.

The exchange apparently became a registered Digital Asset Service Provider [DASP] in the area after a rigorous evaluation procedure. Following authorization from the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution [ACPR], Crypto.com also received approval to function as a DASP from the Autorité des Marchés Financiers [AMF].

In one of the recent announcements, the exchange confirmed an investment of €150 million in France and that it was choosing Paris as the European headquarters.

The company stated, “Crypto.com, the world’s fastest growing cryptocurrency platform, will invest €150 million in France to support the establishment of its market operations, including a regional headquarters in Paris.”

Crypto.com’s €150 million investment will also focus on hiring local talents from France. The exchange is trying to establish its commitment by focusing on compliance, local business development, and products.

Eric Anziani, COO of Crypto.com commented, “Our regulatory approval was the first important step in our journey in France, and we look forward to continuing to engage with stakeholders across sectors to help facilitate the new digital economy in France and providing customers a best-in-class crypto experience,” 

Anziani also stated that the team is excited to make its relationship with Europe robust with Paris as its new HQ. The exchange has been expanding and adding new features to its platform. It recently added an auto-to-up feature for its cardholders.

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Business

FITSPA Uganda Hosts The 2022 Fintech Conference

The Financial Technologies Services Providers’ Association (FITSPA), an umbrella body for FinTechs in Uganda, recently hosted the 2022 fintech conference at Sheraton hotel.

Under the theme, “Investments and Partnerships – How to Thrive in Uganda’s FinTech eco-system and beyond,” the two-day conference convened industry stakeholders to discuss how best players in the industry can attract investment, opportunities, collaboration, and partnerships for sustainable and inclusive growth in the financial services sector. 

Day one kicked off with riveting discussions about the fintech landscape, investments, and partnerships, and a FITSPA women’s hackathon where different innovators showcased solutions for the agritech, transport, and insurtech sectors and were awarded prizes.

While giving the opening remarks, Josephine Olok, the FITSPA Board Chairperson noted that as per the recent state of the Fintech landscape study, 57% of Fintechs in Uganda are self-funded and this is not sustainable. She further emphasized that the need to diversify financing is apparent. 

While commenting on the significance of the hackathon, she emphasized, “35% of the Fintech Employees are women and of the 189 registered member companies, only 5 are women-led. FITSPA women was therefore formed to create a more inclusive environment in the current Fintech landscape.”

Robert Mukiza, Director General of Uganda Investment Authority also bolstered Josephine’s point on investments stating that investments and partnerships are critical to enhancing Uganda’s fintech ecosystem.

He said, “Uganda provides easy entry for investors to set up business for both native and international partners.”

He also mentioned that FITSPA members will now be listed on the Uganda Investment Authority portfolio to open them up to more opportunities.

Day 2 focused on regulation, digital finance, and green finance. 

Speaking about the role played by digitization as a catalyst to green finance, Sanjay Rughani, Chief Executive Officer at Standard Chartered Bank stated, “Banks have scaled down and now have very few branches, this makes access to financial services difficult. FinTechs resolved this problem by moving most of these functions into an app or a USSD function. This reduces movement and ultimately, emission of carbon.”

He added that Uganda is the 12th most vulnerable country in light of environmental disasters and is the 49th least prepared. Therefore, the staggering statistics should encourage us to wake up to the threat of climate change.

FITSPA also launched a Deal book and a feasibility study at the conference. The feasibility study will uniquely position the industry players to take advantage of the market opportunities.

FITSPA recently celebrated its 5 years of existence.

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Business

EMURGO Africa Announces Investment in Scalex

Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem accelerator supporting the expansion of crypto-native Web3 businesses in Africa recently announced an investment in Scalex, a pan-African peer-to-peer network that aims to bring secure, frictionless cryptocurrency trading across Africa. 

According to Adaverse, this strategic investment is part of a seed funding round involving EMURGO Africa, Adaverse, and Hacked Capital. 

Government restrictions on bitcoin transactions have made the P2P trading mechanism widely used. However, in addition to the availability of authorized cryptocurrency exchanges, unauthorized trading also takes place regularly on social media, particularly on chat services like Telegram and WhatsApp. This exposes parties to a wide range of dangers, including fraud exposure and Ponzi schemes masquerading as cryptocurrency initiatives.

Scalex pushes to also solve these risks encountered in P2P crypto-to-fiat transactions across Africa. On its move to become Africa’s leading P2P platform, Scalex is reimagining how digital crypto transactions are facilitated across the world. This is one of the reasons why Adaverse is investing in the peer-to-peer network.

Shogo Ishida, co-CEO for the Middle East & Africa at EMURGO Africa, lauded Scalex’s mission as a commitment worth emulating.

He said, “EMURGO Africa is excited to support Scalex’s vision to provide more secure and seamless next-generation financial access across Africa, which aligns with our goal to build socially impactful solutions in Africa.” 

James Ademuyiwa, Head of Blockchain and co-Founder at Scalex also commented, “In our bid to build value-driven solutions that enable the continued onboarding of millions of users in Africa into the crypto space, it was important to partner with Adaverse to gain access to their knowledge base and connections to Cardano. We are excited about partnering with organizations that are passionate about the overall growth of the Web3 and blockchain space in Africa.”

Vincent Li, founding partner at Adaverse also said, “Fear of asset loss is a key barrier to crypto adoption across Africa, and Scalex intends to tackle this with a unique platform. Scalex’s multi-chain infrastructure safeguards peer-to-peer transactions and Adaverse is glad to support through strategic mentorship and integrate their growth with tools on the Cardano blockchain.”

Scalex was created by Nnaemeka Nwosu, James Ademuyiwa, Adeniyi Adedamola, Ngati Jalani, and Joel Ajide, a group of Lagos-based entrepreneurs working to solve the issues of unsecured trading platforms in Africa’s P2P and trading market.

Scalex is building solutions that ensure African users can easily bridge into the crypto ecosystem seamlessly and with ease. Building features on Web3, Scalex prides itself as the first automated revenue-share peer-to-peer platform. Furthermore, Scalex uses industry-leading features to provide safety, assurance, and an automated crypto platform by merging the best of TradFi and DeFi infrastructures.

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Business

BNB Chain Upgrade Restores Cross-Chain Transfers Following Binance Bridge Hack

Following the multi-million dollar bridge attack last week, BNB Smart Chain successfully released an improved version of its network, eliminating a number of cross-chain concerns.

The upgrade, according to Binance, had no impact on the exchange’s trading of Binance Smart Chain tokens, but it did necessitate a temporary halt to deposits and withdrawals of those tokens.

BNB Chain stated, “All relevant funds stuck in cross-chain transfers will now have arrived in your target wallet or source. Transfers between BNB Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain are now functioning normally.”

The “Moran hard fork” patch release, which restored cross-chain capability between the BNB Beacon Chain and the Binance Smart Chain, was defined as temporary.

In order to support scalable crypto transfers, including BNB and other currencies, BNB Beacon Chain was introduced in April 2019. The next year saw the launch of Binance Smart Chain, which aims to integrate smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) into the Binance ecosystem.

Over the following weeks, developers plan to upgrade the network’s underlying cross-chain proof verification and introduce other security measures to its cross-chain system.

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Business

Harare Institute of Technology Developing A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

A Zimbabwean tertiary learning institution, the Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) is reportedly developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Quinton Kanhukamwe, vice chancellor of the institution, made this announcement at the institution’s 13th graduation ceremony.

Kanhukamwe claims that the proposed CBDC will aid in the eradication of vices such as currency manipulation, cash hoarding, and unlawful foreign exchange trades.

As per his remarks at the graduation, with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa in attendance, Kanhukamwe revealed how the blockchain-anchored CBDC can potentially bring the unbanked into the formal banking system. 

He said:

“Many times, the unbanked population believes that the traditional financial sector is only there to rip off all their earnings. The CBDC has the capacity to significantly reduce the regulatory costs for central banks thus reducing the transactional costs that will ultimately reduce the costs of service. As a result, there is a significant reduction in fees.”

The vice chancellor further stated that once formal banking services are available to the unbanked population, this can potentially set off a chain reaction that will result in increased business for small-to-medium enterprises. 

Additionally, using the CBDC will help the central bank reduce the cost of printing money, according to Kanhukamwe.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) claimed it had created a roadmap for the CBDC in its most recent monetary policy statement. The central bank said it would unveil a public consultation paper which it said would foster a broad and transparent public dialogue regarding the potential benefits and risks of CBDC.

Similar to its previous updates about the CBDC, the RBZ’s latest statement doesn’t state the date when the central bank is hoping to roll out the CBDC. 

The statement also didn’t state if the RBZ is working with another entity towards this objective.

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Business

Google selects Coinbase to take cloud payments with cryptocurrencies

Google announced recently that it will rely on Coinbase to start letting some customers pay for cloud services with cryptocurrencies early in 2023. Coinbase also revealed that it would move some of its applications to Google’s cloud infrastructure.

The deal, which was announced at Google’s Cloud Next conference, might succeed in luring cutting-edge companies to Google in a fierce, fast-growing market, where Google’s top competitors do not currently permit clients to pay with digital currencies. 

The cloud business helps diversify Google parent Alphabet away from advertising, and it now accounts for 9% of revenue, up from less than 6% three years ago, as it is expanding more quickly than Alphabet as a whole.

Jim Migdal, Coinbase’s Vice President For Business Development revealed that Coinbase, which generates a majority of its revenue from retail transactions, will move data-related applications to Google from the market-leading Amazon Web Services cloud, which Coinbase has relied on for years.

Amit Zavery, Vice President & General Manager & Head of Platform at Google Cloud also further stated that the Google Cloud Platform infrastructure service will initially accept cryptocurrency payments from a handful of customers in the Web3 world who want to pay with cryptocurrency, thanks to an integration with the Coinbase Commerce service. 

The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. However, Migdal stated, “Like other Coinbase Commerce arrangements, Coinbase will earn a percentage of transactions that go through it.”

It wasn’t a guarantee that Google would go with Coinbase for the payments portion of the deal. 

However, Zavery commented, “We did look at other companies for the cryptocurrency side of it. Ultimately, Coinbase had the greatest capability.”

Google is also exploring how it can use Coinbase Prime, a service that securely stores organizations’ cryptocurrencies and allows them to execute trades. 

Zavery said that Google will experiment and see if it can participate in managing cryptocurrency assets.

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Business

Kenyan Company Gridless Is Mining Bitcoin Using Wasted Energy

The idea that Bitcoin mining can facilitate the development of renewable energy is counterintuitive at first. After all, the prevailing view in public discourse around Bitcoin mining is that it’s bad for the planet and has few redeeming qualities.

Gridless is a noteworthy project that is offering an alternative perspective on what Bitcoin mining can do. More importantly, the project presents its case in a simple way. Gridless is a Kenya-based crypto mining company that is using the excess electricity from mini-grid hydro generators to mine bitcoin. The revenue generated from Bitcoin mining helps to reduce or subsidize the cost of electricity.

Around 600 million people in Africa south of the Sahara lack access to electricity, according to the Alliance for Rural Electrification.

Distributed power generation and mini-grids will be crucial in resolving this power access issue, according to Gridless’ Founder Erik Hersman.

Although Africa has a lot of renewable energy potential, efforts to make it accessible to underprivileged populations encounter difficulties because the initial demand for power from those places is insufficient to support the economy.

Hersman stated, “In short, it takes a few years for households to grow from getting electricity, to buying the refrigerators, TVs, and other appliances that use up more energy. The scale-up isn’t quick, which means that you need another buyer of that energy in the interim, or the costs to generate that power are going to be too high for that community to pay for as well, thereby slowing down the uptake even further.”

In a recently issued statement, Gridless said while mini-hydropower plants that generate below 100 KW (kilowatts) are being used so far, the company’s objective is to work with larger plants that can generate 500 KW. 

The Bitcoin mining company stated:

“We’ve been working with mini-grid hydro generators in Kenya on how to use their excess capacity for Bitcoin mining, which also significantly reduces the cost of power to the local community. Small <100kW sites now, working towards 500kW soon.”

In the meantime, it’s said that the Gridless approach, if widely implemented, could potentially see Kenya and the African continent, in general, become a significant Bitcoin mining hub in addition to helping cut local Kenyan villages’ electricity prices.

“This business model serves as a welcome decentralization of the overly centralized mega-site Bitcoin mining that goes on today. Not only does it move some hashing power to Africa, but it also further distributes hashing to smaller sites,” Erik Hersman stated in a blog post.

Additionally, at scale, the Gridless approach is also beneficial for the Bitcoin network. It increases the decentralization of Bitcoin mining while also improving Africa’s representation in mining activity.

There is still a long way to go with regard to understanding the best ways to deal with Bitcoin’s energy demands. Nevertheless, when confronted with Gridless’ vision, it’s remarkable to consider that what first appears as a mere payment network is capable of facilitating such transformation.

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Business

Ghana to host the Africa Bitcoin conference

The first Africa Bitcoin Conference (ABC) is set for December 5-7 at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra, Ghana.

Bitcoiners, entrepreneurs, educators, advocates, thought leaders, and industry professionals from Africa and across the world will be gathering to discuss the adoption and use of bitcoin in Africa and across the world.

The event will feature keynote addresses, panel discussions workshops, presentations, exhibitions, and a hackathon with some other exciting additions. The ABC Hackathon commenced on October 10 and will run till December 7. Registration for the event began on September 10.

It has been announced recently that Jack Dorsey, Chairman of Block and co-founder of Twitter will attend the conference as a keynote speaker. Jack Dorsey will be joining about seventy other speakers including Obi Nwosu, co-founder and CEO of Fedi, Alex Gladstein, CSO of the Human Rights Foundation, and Ray Yussuf CEO of Paxful among others.

At the conference’s closing ceremony on December 7, the hackathon’s winners will be revealed. A total of $10,000 in prizes will be awarded, including ones for the best design, and first, second, and third-place contestants.

The conference is anticipated to draw 800 guests, and a number of attendees, including C-suite executives, departmental heads, government officials, investors, venture capitalists, and many more, have already confirmed their attendance.

Furthermore, the conference will host many opportunities to discuss innovation, employment opportunities, and improving regional trade, and tourism among many other initiatives for Africa to continue growing by leveraging Bitcoin.

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Business

BAYC Creator, Yuga Labs Faces Investigation From the SEC

NFTs are not in their best shape now. The whole hype seems to have worn off, which is evident in the notable drop in NFT sales on several NFT marketplaces, including OpenSea. However, the scrutiny over NFTs doesn’t seem to wear off as Yuga Labs faces an investigation from the SEC.

Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), is under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to Bloomberg. The goal of the investigation is to determine whether a federal law was violated by the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection.

As per the details from the person familiar with the matter, the SEC is looking into the possibility of whether a few of the NFTs sold by Yuga Labs are similar to securities and whether they should follow similar rules.

The SEC is also looking into how ApeCoin was distributed to owners of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and associated NFTs. The probe has not yet been made public, and the investigation doesn’t prove that Yuga Labs has committed any misconduct.

Yuga Labs disclosed their full cooperation with the investigations in a statement saying, “It’s well-known that policymakers and regulators have sought to learn more about the novel world of web3. We hope to partner with the rest of the industry and regulators to define and shape the burgeoning ecosystem. As a leader in the space, Yuga is committed to fully cooperating with any inquiries along the way.” 

The SEC is also investigating the potential that a security-like property exists in ApeCoin. In addition to giving the holders APE, BAYC gave them a say in their DAO.

The regulators are now paying more attention to digital assets, crypto companies, and the overall crypto sector. It is a part of ongoing efforts to make sure that crypto businesses and the entire market abide by the rules.