EXCLUSIVE: Payments giant First Data acquires Gyft in an effort to bring digital gift cards to the masses By Michael Carney , written on July 30, 2014 Share this article onFacebookShare this article onTwitterShare this article onGoogle PlusShare this article onLinkedIn From The News Desk Gyft, a Redwood City-based virtual gift card provider has agreed to an acquisition by payment giant First Data, Pando has learned. The terms of the transaction were undisclosed, although early Gyft investor, Karlin Ventures managing director TX Zhuo calls it a great outcome for everybody involved.Thetransaction is expected to close next month. The two year old startup has raised a total of $6 million through its Series A round of funding with backers including Karlin, Google Ventures,A-Grade Investments, Canyon Creek Capital, The Social+Capital Partnership, and angels David Sacks and Haas Portman. Digital gift cards is a small but rapidly growing segment of the $100 billion overall prepaid card market, popular among merchants and consumers alike for their flexibility. Traditional plastic gift cards can be cost prohibitive to deploy and manage, meaning that most small- and mid-sized businesses avoid the hassle entirely. Gyft allows consumers to purchase, send (aka, gift), manage and redeem gift cards digitally via their mobile devices, making it cheaper and more efficient for both consumers and merchants. Gyft addresses another common problem in the prepaid card sector, which is the cards that are lost or forgotten and which ultimately go unredeemed. Contrary to popular perception, these unspent funds do not go to the merchant, but rather eventually end up in state unclaimed property funds, making it a loss for both the merchant and the processor. All parties involved stand to benefit from getting these cards out of the drawer and onto the mobile device, where they are more visible and intelligent alerts and reminders can be used to increase the likelihood they they are ultimately redeemed. Gyft is the latest in a long line of technology acquisitions by First Data as the company aims to modernize its offering around mobile and the cloud. The company snapped up mobile payments and point of sale (mPos) startup Clover in December 2012 for a reported $54 million and subsequently added cardless customer loyalty startup Perka in October 2013 for an unreported sum rumored to be closer to $30 million. The Gyft acquisition has been in the works for at least two months according to sources close to the transaction and clocks in north of Clover, but shy of $100 million. The deal grew out of a partnership between Gyft and Clover, announced in April, aimed at providing access to digital gift cards to First Datas SMB clients. Historically, First Data has sold its own hardware terminals but as the company is moving toward mPos, it makes sense that it would look to address the full life-cycle of a merchants processing needs needs, hence the acquisition of assets in the digital loyalty sector in Perka, and now prepaid cards in Gyft. For Gyft, this acquisition marks an admission that building a dominant gift card brand across top merchants is a difficult undertaking and one best accomplished with the backing and scale of a company like First Data. The company could have gone out and raised another round of funding, and there were other acquisition offers, according to co-founder and CEO Vinny Lingham. We have been building this relationship for a while, and the way I look at it is, once you get to the point where the relationship is good, you ask Why dont we just do this together?, Lingham says in an interview with Pando. We started the company with a mission to digitize and transform the plastic gift card space. The inspiration for this was really Starbucks, and the question, why cant I do that for all the merchants? But as we were going through the process, it was a lot more complicated than it seemed. Onboarding merchants was a real grind. Lingham adds later, We dont see this as an exit. We see this as a continuation of what were already doing but with a lot more resources. Gyft will continue to operate as a standalone brand and the company's 18-person team will stay intact, working out of the companys current San Francisco office. The young company has seen a ton of momentum in the last year thanks to Apples introduction of Passbook and the realization among consumers and merchants alike that digital wallets are inevitable. The company has also ridden a wave of adoption from the bitcoin community, as its prepaid cards for merchants like Amazon have long been one of the most flexible ways to transact using the crypto-currency. We feel like weve won the space by focusing 100 percent on gift cards, while too many mobile wallets tried to go too horizontal. As a result, we nailed the customer experience, Lingham says. Facebook shut down their gift card business yesterday. And although Google recently launched their Wallet, we actually integrate with them and they view us as a solution to the gift card problem. For First Data, this acquisition is a means of quickly and convincingly entering the digital prepaid card space and closing the loop, so to speak, on the full payments lifecycle, according to Mark Putman, the companys SVP of Prepaid Solutions. Speed to market was a big consideration for us [in this transaction], he says. We could have built this internally, but we think that as fast as were moving in digital theres value in the speed of acquiring an existing technology an consumer audience. They have addressed a large piece of the technological problem not to mention developed a really simple and intuitive user interface. Thats one area where I think we can say to them, youre smarter than us. Finally, Gyft is a really powerful and descriptive brand that people remember and relate to. First Data, which has long been considered the worlds largest card processor at over $1 trillion in card transactions processed annually across more than 6,000,000 merchants and 3,500 financial institutions. The company is dominant in the gas and groceries categories, processing more than 80 percent of all transactions in these two markets. Its these relationships, and the operating scale that underpins them, that should be the biggest benefit to Gyft. As Lingham notes, onboarding merchants has been among the most difficult challenges for Gyft to date. Plugging into an existing customer roster and gaining access to an mature sales and customer success team should accelerate Gyfts assault on its targeted top 200 merchant list. This business is really about coverage,Lingham says. For example, if you upload five cards but balance inquiry only works on three of them, it defeats the purpose of having all your cards in one place. In this business, you need to get as close to full coverage as possible. We have around 80 percent of the top 100 retailers already on our system,but those other 20 will take some time Gyft has more than 200 merchants in total, while First Data has 300 of its own national retail prepaid clients, according to the company. Both merchants and consumers are eager to go digital and plastics may or may not go away fully over time, Putman says. Personally I think people will always have a propensity to physically give something and for merchants, the ability to physically touch someone is important. But Theres no doubt that digital saves money, makes distribution easier, and allows merchants to regularly refresh the message delivered to consumers. This last piece about ongoing messaging is a key piece of the value proposition for merchants in digital prepaid cards. Retailers use Gyft as a means ofdrivingcustomer engagement, including offering incentives or promotions, as simple reminders to use a languishing gift card. Despite itsscale, First Data is in the process of a lengthy and often ugly turnaround of its own, having been purchased and taken private by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) in a 2007 transaction, and in the processed laiden with high yield debt that almost killed the business. The company has since slashed several thousand jobs and relocated from Denver to Atlanta amid a PR crisis resulting from pushing its once-hometown airline Frontier into bankruptcy. The company will release its secondquarter financial results later this morning. This isnot quite the rosy scenario every startup aspires to enter, but given the limited venture capital it raised and the time the team put in, this should be considered a moderate win for Gyft. And ultimately, the deal may mean that the company is more successful in achieving its ultimate vision of creating the ubiquitous gift card brand. But at the same time, its disheartening to see a young, disruptive company like Gyft sell so early to a legacy institution no less and rob the technology ecosystem of a larger stand alone player. Putman acknowledges that maintaining Gyfts culture and letting its team focus on their unique areas of excellence will be key to this deal turning out successfully. First Data, in this sense, hopes to serve as accelerant on an already roaring fire. I have built and sold companies previously, so I understand the importance of balance and allowing autonomy and those creative forces to flow, Putman says. Broadly speaking, the plan is to let them continue doing what they're doing while taking their best assets and adding scale to them by incorporating them assets into our closed loop system. Like Linghams early inspiration, every SMB merchant has looked at Starbucks, the gold standard of prepaid programs, and asked how do I get a piece of that. But the reality is, most companies are not Starbucks and lack the clout to land a dedicated mobile app on their customers devices let alone deliver a world class experience should they do so. Gyft is the answer to this problem, by offering a single elegantly designed app that works across merchants. From that perspective, given First Datas position in the market, the deal makes perfect sense. Our number one priority is to build a gift card brand that consumers can know and trust, Lingham says. Our team is super excited and we see this as an amazing outcome." Share this article onFacebookShare this article onTwitterShare this article onGoogle PlusShare this article onLinkedIn

Switzerland’s crypto boom has entered another dimension with retailers rolling out Bitcoin (BTC) vouchers and gift cards.

According to Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger, Manor — the country’s largest department store chain — is already selling Bitcoin voucher cards in 59 of its branches.

Meanwhile, the retail giant Valora will begin selling BTC gift cards in its kiosks across the country starting April 1.

Dubbed “Cryptonow,” the Bitcoin vouchers are from the stables of Värdex Suisse, a cryptocurrency financial services firm. Värdex is also a subsidiary of major Swiss crypto exchange Bitcoin Suisse.

According to Simon Grylka, head of operations at Värdex, Cryptonow offers a simple onboarding channel for would-be cryptocurrency adopters daunted by the usual avenues for acquiring virtual currency. For Grylka, the Cryptonow voucher is akin to digital gold coins.

The Cryptonow voucher cards will be available in three different variants ranging from 100 to 500 francs ($107 to $535). The Värdex Bitcoin gift card product is coming amid continued growth in Switzerland’s crypto and blockchain industry.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the top-50 blockchain firms in the Crypto Valley are up more than 680% in value since mid-2020.

With merchant adoption of BTC still growing, Cryptonow owners are limited in how to spend their Bitcoin gift cards.

Presently, the options available to them would be to redeem the vouchers via an exchange service or sell the BTC amount loaded on the card using one of the 70 Bitcoin ATMs operated by Värdex.

However, with the fixed and marginal fees charged by the retailers for acquiring the cards, Cryptonow in its present iteration seems mostly to be a novelty way of acquiring Bitcoin.

While there are several avenues that offer crypto-to-gift card trading, Cryptonow is one of the first products that offer gift cards loaded with cryptocurrency.

The use of gift cards to purchase cryptocurrency is popular in the peer-to-peer trading arena especially in jurisdictions with underdeveloped financial services infrastructure.

Switzerland’s crypto boom has entered another dimension with retailers rolling out Bitcoin (BTC) vouchers and gift cards.

According to Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger, Manor — the country’s largest department store chain — is already selling Bitcoin voucher cards in 59 of its branches.

Meanwhile, the retail giant Valora will begin selling BTC gift cards in its kiosks across the country starting April 1.

Dubbed “Cryptonow,” the Bitcoin vouchers are from the stables of Värdex Suisse, a cryptocurrency financial services firm. Värdex is also a subsidiary of major Swiss crypto exchange Bitcoin Suisse.

According to Simon Grylka, head of operations at Värdex, Cryptonow offers a simple onboarding channel for would-be cryptocurrency adopters daunted by the usual avenues for acquiring virtual currency. For Grylka, the Cryptonow voucher is akin to digital gold coins.

The Cryptonow voucher cards will be available in three different variants ranging from 100 to 500 francs ($107 to $535). The Värdex Bitcoin gift card product is coming amid continued growth in Switzerland’s crypto and blockchain industry.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the top-50 blockchain firms in the Crypto Valley are up more than 680% in value since mid-2020.

With merchant adoption of BTC still growing, Cryptonow owners are limited in how to spend their Bitcoin gift cards.

Presently, the options available to them would be to redeem the vouchers via an exchange service or sell the BTC amount loaded on the card using one of the 70 Bitcoin ATMs operated by Värdex.

However, with the fixed and marginal fees charged by the retailers for acquiring the cards, Cryptonow in its present iteration seems mostly to be a novelty way of acquiring Bitcoin.

While there are several avenues that offer crypto-to-gift card trading, Cryptonow is one of the first products that offer gift cards loaded with cryptocurrency.

The use of gift cards to purchase cryptocurrency is popular in the peer-to-peer trading arena especially in jurisdictions with underdeveloped financial services infrastructure.

Due to its price volatility, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are often used as investments. But now, more opportunities to make purchases with cryptocurrency are available than ever before. Purchases can now be made through third-party vendors like Paypal, directly with a business that accepts cryptocurrency, or on a peer-to-peer payment platform through a cryptocurrency escrow payment.

Using one of these methods, users open themselves to a variety of products that can be purchased with cryptocurrency. Some of them include:

Although Expedia no longer accepts Bitcoin, CheapAir has recently expanded its payment methods to include Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Dash, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) for payments on flights, car rentals, and railway tickets. The company continues to promise its cryptocurrency users that as new coins are released, they will continue to update their payment methods to reflect consumers' popular choices.

The website ScubaOtter is a popular choice for making purchases of scuba gear with bitcoin.

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts can now purchase some of their groceries with Bitcoin, Litecoin, or the Gemini Dollars through the app 'Spedn,' after a partnership with Whole Foods. The Flexa spending app can also be used at Baskin Robbins, Jamba Juice, and several other food retailers in America.

Other countries have followed the trend towards digital payments as well, including KFC Canada. KFC made bitcoin available for payment and created the specialty bitcoin bucket. In France, the Just Eat service also announced that they could accept Bitcoin when ordering food through their platform.

Popular websites such as Gyft, Coingate, and eGifter allow users to pay for gift cards using bitcoin and several other altcoins, including Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. Gift cards can be purchased for a variety of retailers, including Dunkin Donuts, Best Buy, Target, Nike, Airbnb, Footlocker, and Home Depot.

Many investors have chosen precious metals as an investment to diversify their holdings. Now there are many options to purchase these assets with cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin is the first of the cryptocurrencies to be used for big-ticket purchases such as real estate. In fact, Greater Property Group in Canada recently shared their digital currency program. By partnering with digital currency trusts, sellers can accept offers with bitcoin or Ethereum and choose if they want to receive the funds in fiat or digital currency.

Reed Jewelers, a jewelry store in the United States with over 74 years of experience, has recently started accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for watches, wedding bands, gems, diamonds, and anything else they sell in their stores.

For online purchases, users can use the "Pay with Bitcoin" option on their checkout page. In-store, users simply need to let one of the advisors know that they would like to pay with bitcoin.

For those who happen to be Dallas Mavericks or Miami Dolphins fans, digital currencies are another payment at your disposal. Shark Tank investor and avid bitcoin collector Mark Cuban has been behind the acceptance of bitcoin to buy tickets for upcoming games or any item sold at the stadium for Mavericks games. Similarly, the Miami Dolphins have allowed patrons to purchase food and tickets using the cryptocurrency Litecoin.

Furniture retailers like Overstock.com have also provided options for making purchases with digital currencies. On their website, users can purchase electronics, mattresses, coffee makers, tools, and rugs. To accept bitcoin, Overstock.com partnered with the Coinbase platform. By selecting "Pay with Bitcoin" in the payment information section, users are prompted to provide their information, including a Coinbase account or Bitcoin address.

Etsy, a globally renowned e-commerce platform, allows sellers to set bitcoin as a method of receiving payments from their purchases. Etsy isn't the only platform to do this; Shopify and Square have also made offerings available to allow small businesses to accept crypto. Furthermore, Blockonomics, a decentralized payment solution, has worked with the website platform WordPress to make Bitcoin integrations easy for business owners. As a result, many custom items or products created by small business owners can now be purchased with specific cryptocurrencies.

This is only a partial list of the places where you might choose to spend your cryptocurrency. After all, with a little creativity, such as transacting with sellers directly on a cryptocurrency escrow platform or purchasing gift cards, just about anything can be purchased with digital currencies.

Most of the gaming platforms don’t allow buying games with Bitcoin. You could use Bitcoin on Steam in 2017, but when the ICO craze hit the crypto market, the service quit using it. “High fees and volatility” were the reason. 

However, you can buy pretty much any game you want with Bitcoin on third-party services. Such platforms as Joltfun, Mmoga, and IndieGala offer thousands of games including the latest and the most popular ones at rather competitive prices. At Bitrefill and Keys4Coins, you can spend Bitcoin for Steam, Xbox, etc. gift cards which you can further use at the original platforms. 

Now, let’s take a closer look at these services. 

Joltfun is designed specifically for crypto enthusiastic gamers — it offers to buy PC games with Bitcoin right from the front page. Coinjournal crypto media calls it a “#1 shop to buy PC games with Bitcoin” as it “takes the crown based on its selection, overall prices, and user support.”

At Joltfun, you buy games with Bitcoin directly — upon the purchase, you get a video game key. Here, you can buy Xbox One games with Bitcoin, buy Origin games with Bitcoin along with 8 other popular gaming platforms: Steam, PlayStation, Battle.Net, and more. 

Choosing from 22,368 games means that basically, you can find here anything you may need. Joltfun offers Cyberpunk 2077 for $39.6, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands for $40.7, and Read Ded Redemption 2 Ultimate Edition for $50.9. 

Pay with Bitcoin on-chain or instantly with Lightning Network is possible. With the latter, you get the game code immediately, while if you pay regularly with Bitcoin, it takes from minutes to hours depending on the network load. 

IndieGala is another platform where you can buy game keys directly is IndieGala. It might not have every popular AAA trending in the market, but here are some perks of the platform that you may find attractive: 

IndieGala accepts payments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. 

Bitrefill allows you to «buy gift cards for anything under the sun.» This means that this platform is not really a gaming store and not specifically crypto-focused, but you can buy games on Steam with Bitcoin by buying a Steam gift card on Bitrefill. Fortnite, Battle.net, Minecraft, Xbox, and many other games are available. 

To buy PS4 games with Bitcoin at Bitrefill, same as many other games, no account is necessary as stated — however, you will be asked for an e-mail address for order status updates. 

Other than gaming, Bitrefill offers to buy gift cards for traveling, entertainment, food, and a dozen other categories. When you choose your country, Bitrefill will show you all the local shops and services which you can buy gift cards for. 

Bitrefill allows payment using Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Dash. 

Keys4Coins is something in between Joltfun and Bitrefill: here, you can purchase both game codes and gift cards. The platform offers over 19,000 products for Steam, 500+ Origin games and items, 76 Battle.net products, and more. 

Can you buy Steam games with Bitcoin on the Steam website? You can’t since 2017, but here’s the gift card opportunity for crypto that provides a good alternative: 

Prices at the platform are somewhere in the middle of the pack. While you can find quite nice deals on sale, prices, in general, are a little higher than on Joltfun and some other platforms. Cyberpunk 2077 goes here at $44.7.

Keys4Coins not only has plenty of keys but paying with a wide choice of currencies is possible here, including USD/EUR/GBP, BTC, ETH, XMR, DOGE, LTC, BCH, DASH, LTC. 

Mmoga has been around for 12 years and has attracted over 7 million customers worldwide. The choice of games and gaming platforms here is abundant: you can find keys for the latest top games or classics, gamecards, or virtual currencies like WoW Gold, Aion Kinah, Final Fantasy 14 Gil, and many more.

Mmoga has discounts for the recurrent customers: if you spend 250€ in a period of 90 days, you get a 2.5% discount; 1,500€ spendings in 90 days result in a 7.5% discount; and “Lifetime Patrons” who have spent 3,000€ have a 10% discount irrespective of the period: 

This may look too much for the one-time buyers, but the deal is quite good for those who have many repetitive expenses in gaming — Mmoga offers a vast range of products for prices slightly higher than on Joltfun.  

Mmoga accepts Bitcoin and a few major altcoins. 

At the platforms listed above, this move is very simple to making any other Bitcoin payment — you choose an item, proceed to cart, choose the payment option, and then either scan a QR code or type in the seller’s BTC address in your wallet. That’s it! In minutes, your purchase details will be in your e-mail. 

The number of companies and organizations accepting bitcoin and other crypto assets as payment instruments continues to grow. The latest coming from the US are from the food industry – Muscle Maker Grill and numerous chain restaurants operated by one parent company – Landry’s.

Founded in 1980, Landry’s Inc. is privately-owned multi-brand dining, hospitality, entertainment, and gaming corporation operating multiple smaller companies. During a recent CNBC interview, the Chairman and CEO, Tilman Fertitta, announced that most of the restaurant chain’s brands will start to accept BTC payments soon.

“We’ll have it, probably, within all of our restaurant brands – or 80% to 90% – in the next 90 days, where you don’t have to use a Mastercard or Visa or American Express anymore. You can use bitcoin or other digital currencies.”

The BTC adoption would start with some locations of Mastro’s, while other company brands like Morton’s The Steakhouse and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co will follow suit later.

Fertitta, whose NBA team, the Houston Rockets, also accepts bitcoin payments, outlined the simplicity of crypto transactions and added they are “here to stay.”

“This is where it is, and it’s inevitable that this was going to happen.” – the billionaire added.

Shortly after his interview, Muscle Maker Inc. outlined similar plans as well. The self-described “healthier for you” company, operating Muscle Maker Grill, Healthy Joe’s, MMG Burger Bar, and Superfit Foods, said it will start accepting bitcoin payments as an alternative to cash, credit, and debit cards.

“The acceptance of bitcoin is a natural progression for companies looking to stay relevant. Millennials are in search of healthy food, giving them the ability to pay with a cryptocurrency makes it even easier to eat healthy.” – commented Muscle Maker’s CEO, Michael Roper.

Apart from food purchases, users can employ the primary cryptocurrency to buy properties. Argentine’s giant e-commerce marketplace, Mercado Libre, announced earlier this week that it had listed numerous apartments, houses, townhouses, lots, land, and other properties in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Cordoba that can be bought with bitcoin.

The statement touched upon the growing role of digital assets in the region. Furthermore, Mercado Libre hosted a webinar in which it educated viewers on how they can best employ cryptocurrencies.

With the aforementioned food chains and Mercado Libre, the number of BTC accepting organizations keeps increasing. CryptoPotato recently listed numerous such companies that allow their customers to buy products and services with bitcoin or other digital assets.

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Vodafone and cryptocurrencies are two terms that don’t bear any interconnection at first glance. You don’t think of cryptocurrency when you hear the brand name Vodafone or vice versa. However, if you look a little deep into the market, you can surely spot some connections between Vodafone and cryptocurrencies. And there are two aspects you can always explore:

As someone enthusiastic about cryptocurrency, you should know about both these things. If you have some cryptocurrency investments and use Vodafone’s telecommunication services, learning about the potential payment options will make your life easier. Similarly, if you are interested in following Vodafone as a business entity in the crypto world, you should look at the second aspect.

In this article, we have covered both. We will tell you everything you should know about the most important connections between cryptocurrencies and Vodafone. Before we begin, we should have an intro to Vodafone as a bigger-than-it-seems company.

Depending on the country you live in, Vodafone may mean different things to you. Still, for the most part, it has to do with telecommunications services. Telecommunications and IT services provided by Vodafone are now available in more than 22 countries. The company has also established partner networks in a few dozen countries on top of these. The company has many subsidiaries, including Vodafone UK, Vodafone Australia, Vodafone Japan, UPC Romania, Vodafone Iceland, and Vodacom Group.

In addition to telecommunication services, Vodafone and its subsidiaries have worked with some associated industries. For instance, in many countries, Vodafone had launched mobile money-transfer services, which were easy to use. You could also spot health services and some charity-oriented activities from some of the Vodafone subsidiaries. Vodafone Group was recently involved in the Libra Association, a global digital currency initiative from Facebook.

Now that you know enough about Vodafone and its market activities, we will see how these are connected to the cryptocurrency realm.

If you live in the 22 countries where Vodafone has established its presence, you have a chance at using crypto payment methods to get Vodafone services with ease. For instance, if you use the mobile, TV, or broadband services from the Vodafone UK subsidiary, you can refill your phone using a cryptocurrency token. It will be a great way to spend your Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Ethereum in one of the best ways possible.

Unfortunately, Vodafone does not accept Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency tokens as a valid form of payment. Therefore, you cannot simply go to the Vodafone website and complete the payment via Bitcoin or Litecoin.

Instead, we have to follow a slightly different route. In this case, we will be using a service called Bitrefill.

Bitrefill is a place that sells you electronic gift cards and accepts cryptocurrency payments. Cellular and other services from Vodafone are on the list of services that are supported by Bitrefill. It means you can easily buy Vodafone services gift cards from this website. The best part is that Bitrefill has optimized its services for the different markets out there. Because of this, users of Vodafone UK and Vodafone USA can have a similarly excellent experience.

As of now, Bitrefill accepts payment in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, and Dogecoin.

Once you have bought the Vodafone PIN or gift card, the following steps are easy as a piece of cake. The gift card will be delivered to your email instantly, and you can access it without any hassle. Once you have it at your disposal, you can go to Vodafone’s official website and redeem the card. If we are talking about a PIN, you can save it through your prepaid channel as well.

In both cases, you will have the amount credited to your account in just a few seconds. There is also a way to purchase these gift cards as a present to someone else. Instead of using the cards, you can simply forward the confidential PIN to your friend, family, or acquaintance. They will be able to redeem the PIN and use the services from Vodafone.

As we said, Vodafone services are available in many countries. Therefore, you must check the details before you make the final purchase. Bitrefill will tell you where the gift card or PIN would work when you open the main page itself. Depending on the country of residence, you can choose a convenient form of payment as well. The commission rates may vary according to this selection, though.

If you don’t want the hassle of gift cards, you can check out the ‘Refill Phone’ option on Bitrefill. It works for prepaid mobile customers, and they can recharge their phone/data packs by entering the number directly and paying the corresponding amount through a valid cryptocurrency.

The restriction? Vodafone may have set a limit to the amount of money you can pay via cryptocurrency!

As we indicated earlier, Vodafone isn’t a stranger to the cryptocurrency world. It has done so much with cryptocurrencies that it became a part of headlines for an extended period. Here is what Vodafone did as a part of its foray into the cryptocurrency world.

Vodafone had shown interest in blockchain-based applications from the very beginning. You could find many explainer articles on the official handles of Vodafone Group. However, the official move happened when the social networking giant, Facebook, announced its plan to launch a digital currency called Libra. This currency, which has now been renamed Diem, was backed by some of the leading companies in the industry at that time. And the Vodafone Group was one of the big shots on the list.

However, soon enough, the project Libra was subjected to many criticisms from governmental and nonprofit sectors. Regulatory bodies in the European Union and the United States had asked the involved companies to address the Libra project’s viability.

Following these regulation conundrums, Vodafone decided to leave project Libra. As of now, Vodafone isn’t part of any cryptocurrency platform as we know it. However, when the group left project Libra, it had added that it would work on creating a genuine contribution to “extending financial inclusion.” However, judging by how things have gone down for Vodafone, it’s improbable that the new intervention would be a crypto-based payment system.

Instead, sources suggest that Vodafone would be focusing on M-Pesa, a payment system that Vodafone had introduced in many countries, including Kenya. While this app doesn’t have anything to do with blockchain or cryptocurrency, we don’t know whether Vodafone has plans to extend the capabilities of M-Pesa and make it a global solution for effortless payments.

As things stand, Vodafone isn’t officially involved in any cryptocurrency-based project. Considering that the official service websites don’t accept Bitcoin or other tokens as a valid form of payment, we can’t expect any sudden change, either. At the same time, as a user, you can use services like Bitrefill to make crypto payments to Vodafone.

While the Vodafone Libra collaboration has officially been killed, we have to wait until an official word from Vodafone to see if the group has joined any rival brands. It is worth noting that Vodafone has kept promoting blockchain-based developments through its official handles. In one of the posts, Vodafone was also quoted saying that regardless of the opinions regarding its nature, blockchain is the future.

This statement itself proves that Vodafone may soon start implementing blockchain-based technology in its services. Supporting Bitcoin as a viable payment method could be one of the first steps in that journey. Till then, we need mediators to use cryptocurrencies with Vodafone.

On Friday, February 12, the world’s largest service provider of cryptocurrency payment services BitPay announced its integration with Apple Pay. The platform stated that all its U.S. customers using the BitPay PrePaid MasterCard can add it to the Apple Wallet and further spend their holdings with Apple Pay.

This is a big step in getting cryptocurrency use for daily purchases like in apps, stores, and online. On the other hand, it also brings the Cupertino-based tech giant closer to the crypto ecosystem. Well, speculations are already ripe that Apple might start its crypto trading facility in time to come and gain more market share.

Customers who have just been a part of the BitPay ecosystem and waiting to receive their plastic cards, can add their virtual BitPay card to Apple Wallet through the BitPay Wallet app and can start spending immediately. However, just make sure that you have the most recent version of BitPay app downloaded.

BitPay CEO Stephen Pair said that the company is also working on adding support for Samsung Pay and Google and shall be available by later this year. Mr. Pair said:

“We have thousands of BitPay Wallet app customers using the BitPay Card who are always looking for new places and ways to spend their crypto. Adding Apple Pay and soon Google and Samsung Pay makes it easy and convenient to use the BitPay Card in more places from day-to-day items to luxury purchases.”

The BitPay Wallet app currently supports popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Besides, it also supports some of the most widely used stablecoins like BUSD, USDC, PAX, and GUSD.

BitPay’s major vision involves facilitating Bitcoin and crypto use for faster and safer transactions. The BitPay wallet app allows customers to manage and spend BTC with the BitPay card and turn it into fiat before depositing it to the merchant.

For some high-end users, the BitPay wallet app also supports the option to buy and store crypto in addition to making online payments. BitPay also allows its users to buy gift cards from several online

The post BitPay Announces Apple Pay Integration to Bring Crypto Spendings In Mainstream appeared first on Coingape.

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Since the first days of cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology, Bitcoin has had contenders in the market. Many of these contenders could not survive till the future of cryptocurrency, but Litecoin was different in that aspect.

Even today, although it may not have the same massive trading volume or value as Bitcoin, Litecoin is a vital cryptocurrency token that investors and day-to-day users cannot overlook. That the current value of 1 LTC is equivalent to less than 100 USD makes Litecoin something that you can buy and use to purchase stuff.

This makes us wonder: Can you pay for your favorite products and services using Litecoin? The answer is a simple one: YES. As it happens, hundreds of businesses accept Litecoin as a payment method, offering you the benefits of quick cryptocurrency transactions.

Before we show you the list of those enterprises where you can spend LTC, we will answer some questions.

Litecoin is a P2P cryptocurrency token, and it was released first in October 2011. In the following years, LTC became a popular alternative to Bitcoin, especially for those who did not want to invest as much as Bitcoin was demanding. While we can say that Litecoin is a Bitcoin spin-off, a few factors are making a difference.

For instance, the developers behind the coin modified how often the Blockchain processes transactions. LTC set just 2.5 minutes, which is only a quarter of Bitcoin’s transaction-processing interval. It means merchants and users could confirm their LTC-based transactions without waiting for an extended period. The next huge change was the use of Scrypt, which is a memory-hard algorithm.

The second aspect is not the most popular one because it made Litecoin mining a Herculean task. It also made Litcoin a difficult-to-produce cryptocurrency token. Despite all these complications, Litecoin has had a good run with numbers even during this COVID-hit economy. Although there have been a few dips in April, May, and July 2020, LTC’s value quickly made its way up the ladder, easily crossing the $90 mark.

Have you ever wondered why many companies accept Litecoin? You may also want to ponder over why you decided to spend Litecoin instead of other cryptocurrency tokens. Here are some possibilities. 

Transactions via Litecoin are extremely fast when compared to other cryptocurrency tokens. You can get the confirmation quickly, and this makes things more convenient for merchants and customers.

Unlike Bitcoin, Litecoin has not crossed its value beyond the $100 equivalent limit. Meaning, you would be able to use Litecoin in a way that is not that strange from spending fiat currencies.

When you decide to pay with Litecoin, you also enjoy the perks of advanced compatibility. You will not have any trouble combining this coin with your favorite digital/physical wallets and other exchanges.

Now, you know why miners, investors, and users are going crazy about Litecoin’s growth, right? We will now look at the significant business ventures where you can pay with LTC.

The following companies allow you to purchase their products, services, and other combinations by paying a few LTCs instead of fiat money. While some of them are cryptocurrency-exclusive, most merchants choose to keep support for LTC, BTC, ETH, etc., alongside fiat currency-based payments.

We will also have a look at the significant Litecoin payment gateways in the market, but later. 

Below are the companies we have selected from various categories: web services, physical products, food & beverages, apparel stores, etc. Just be sure that almost every seller that accepts crypto-based payments will also accept Litecoin.

Travala is a travel website that promotes payments through cryptocurrency tokens. Here, you can use LTC to reserve hotels and rooms across the world, book flight tickets to various countries, and even purchase holiday packages. Depending on the cryptocurrency token you have selected, Travala would show you all the booking rates in that currency. Because Litecoin has the value we mentioned earlier, you will not have to count the zeros in a number to understand its real value. Travala is always improving the website’s choices, currently bringing thousands of hotels into the worldwide network.

eGifter is a super-popular platform where you can purchase premium gift cards and get them delivered via email or text. The platform also allows you to hand-deliver certain gift cards, even when it comes to bulkier orders. This gifting platform is a proud supporter of payments via Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, and XRP, along with the traditional payment options like VISA and Amex. Therefore, if you want to give someone who would rather redeem it in their favorite store, you should check out eGifter with the Litecoin wallet by your side.

Ever thought you could purchase and rent properties using cryptocurrencies? Well, you can do that now when using a platform like RE/MAX London. This worldwide company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, allows you to buy and rent high-quality properties while accepting Bitcoin and Litecoin as valid payments. Besides, RE/MAX is a company that has been supporting the Bitcoin era of payments even half a decade back. You may also want to check if the other country holdings of RE/MAX are also accepting Litecoin. Individual paying options may vary, though.

Coaex is an interesting way to spend Litecoin because it enables you to diversify your investments. You can use this online store to purchase gold bullion bars and silver bullion bars by paying with Litecoin, Bitcoin, and Dash. The company also adds that it may support additional cryptocurrency tokens, but the final decision depends on the coin’s current performance. Considering that Litecoin has had an impressive run in the past years, you will not have trouble using it to buy some gold/silver bars. As for serviceability and shipping, you may have to check with local laws in your country of residence.

UnlockBase is another place where you can do something different using your LTC investments. On this website, you can find many options to unlock a stuck/locked iPhone device. This team has been handling the business for more than a decade, making the process super-smooth. The service even offers a money-back guarantee if you are unsure about the service. However, if you have a locked phone that you cannot touch, you should get them to UnlockBase. In addition to Litecoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, and Ethereum are supported here.

Snel is an online store that sells you domain names, web hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting, and VPS services by accepting Litecoin in return. Users recommend Snel for its intuitive User Interface and how they offer customer service. Compared to the rates you typically pay for hosting and DNS services in the market, Snel charges you only a little. And, when you use Litecoin, Bitcoin, or other cryptocurrency tokens, you can save even more. Snel supports a total of 20+ payment methods, and it means you can find at least one suitable way to pay for their hosting.

CryptoGames is one of the famous shops that accept Litecoin without any trouble. Its reasons are simple, as well. It is a gambling website where you can make investments in cryptocurrency and bag your winnings. Despite the support for crypto tech, the website supports many games, including Dice, Blackjack, Minesweeper, Slot, Lottery, and Video Poker. Depending on your mood and the edge you need, you can pick one of these games and deposit via Litecoin. More importantly, CryptoGames is a fabulous space to get your Litecoins converted to another token as well.

Now that you have seen the popular places to use Litecoin, we would like to clear some more doubts.

Amazon does not accept Litecoin, and it will not probably soon, either. Having said that, if you want to purchase something from Amazon but only have LTCs, you can use an LTC to USD conversion service or a gift-card service to pay generally on Amazon.

Litecoin is not one of the official payments on Steam, unfortunately. However, if you know something about Steam, it is that the game store is rich when it comes to gift cards. You can use the eGifter platform to create a Steam gift card using Litecoin and use the gift card on Steam to get the game titles you want.

Towards the end of October 2020, PayPal outlined its vision for a whole new service that will allow its users to purchase, hold, and sell several cryptocurrencies, including Litecoin. As a result, eligible PayPal account holders in the U.S. can already buy, hold, and sell Litecoin directly with PayPal.

If you have an online or offline store where you would like to accept Litecoin payments, you should integrate a compatible Payment Gateway to your web-store. You can see that websites that accept Litecoin are often using the same payment gateway to get things done.

You can see how to accept payments for your business in crypto using a payment gateway like NOWPayments here.

You can see that most of the big names in the business currently do not accept Litecoin — or any other crypto token, for that matter. However, considering the growth Litecoin, Bitcoin, Ether, and tokens have acquired this year, we think you can see some difference soon.

At the same time, many alternative businesses accept Litecoin and other coins. They are the early adopters in the game, offering many choices for those who have invested in the crypto tech. Make sure you check them out to get the best deals. 

On Friday, February 12, the world’s largest service provider of cryptocurrency payment services BitPay announced its integration with Apple Pay. The platform stated that all its U.S. customers using the BitPay PrePaid MasterCard can add it to the Apple Wallet and further spend their holdings with Apple Pay.

This is a big step in getting cryptocurrency use for daily purchases like in apps, stores, and online. On the other hand, it also brings the Cupertino-based tech giant closer to the crypto ecosystem. Well, speculations are already ripe that Apple might start its crypto trading facility in time to come and gain more market share.

Customers who have just been a part of the BitPay ecosystem and waiting to receive their plastic cards, can add their virtual BitPay card to Apple Wallet through the BitPay Wallet app and can start spending immediately. However, just make sure that you have the most recent version of BitPay app downloaded.

BitPay CEO Stephen Pair said that the company is also working on adding support for Samsung Pay and Google and shall be available by later this year. Mr. Pair said:

“We have thousands of BitPay Wallet app customers using the BitPay Card who are always looking for new places and ways to spend their crypto. Adding Apple Pay and soon Google and Samsung Pay makes it easy and convenient to use the BitPay Card in more places from day-to-day items to luxury purchases.”

The BitPay Wallet app currently supports popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Besides, it also supports some of the most widely used stablecoins like BUSD, USDC, PAX, and GUSD.

BitPay’s major vision involves facilitating Bitcoin and crypto use for faster and safer transactions. The BitPay wallet app allows customers to manage and spend BTC with the BitPay card and turn it into fiat before depositing it to the merchant.

For some high-end users, the BitPay wallet app also supports the option to buy and store crypto in addition to making online payments. BitPay also allows its users to buy gift cards from several online

To keep track of DeFi updates in real time, check out our DeFi news feed Here.

Crypto cashback programs are as simple as they sound. They offer a financial rebate on your purchases, but rather than in the typical fiat currency, it is paid to you in cryptocurrency, usually in the form of Bitcoin. Crypto cashback programs are great for those looking to hold their rewards as crypto has been on a surge and those rewards have grown even more over time.

Cashback programs are very popular in the traditional financial system, among a range of other deals, and offers designed to get you to spend money in return for some sort of incentive, for example air miles, discounts on future products etc, it is only natural that crypto services are offering the same type of incentives to spur adoption and usage.

When making use of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency reward schemes, make sure to do your research to ensure you get what you are promised, as there are always scammers out there looking to take away your hard-earned money.

You can get cashback on a range of different products and services. Whether you are looking to book a romantic getaway to the Maldives, or just do your weekly shop at Walmart, there will be cash to earned with these cryptocurrency cashback options. Not only are physical products and packages up for earning, but services and transport are too, with many programs offering cashback on travel providers such as Omio and Uber, and on food services such as DoorDash.

By using many of the services below you are able to earn cashback from your debit and credit card spending. Cashback programs work by providing you with a cash rebate on your purchases, which can be conducted using a debit or credit card. You won’t need to go through any difficult processes or jump through any hoops to do so.

Every time you spend with the card (anywhere Visa is accepted) you get 1-5% (depending on which card you have) in CRO tokens as cashback.

You can get the plastic card tier for free. With 1% cashback this is already a good deal I think. When you choose to stake CRO coins you get a higher card tier with more benefits.

Wirex is a British FCA regulated app for trading cryptocurrencies. They also offer a Visa card to easily spend your crypto. This card also offers 0,5% cashback (paid in BTC) on all in-store purchases.

You can read more about Wirex here, or visit the site by clicking here.

BlockFi card is set to be launched this month and it will offer a great cashback program on purchases made with it – 1.5% paid back into your BlockFi account that can be easily withdrawn or sent to the trading platform on BlockFi. Or you can even send it to your lending account to earn more money with it as Blockfi is the leading crypto loans platform that offers up to 8% APY on your money deposited with them. There is an annual fee of $200 which is definitely appallingly high, but the $250 signup bonus in Bitcoin returns $50 in Bitcoin above the $200 annual fee after spending $3,000 on the card in your first three months.

Visit Blockfi by clicking here.

Fold is an organisation that not only offers you crypto cashback on your purchases, but they also feature other financial advancements in crypto, such as gift cards. Their cashback features can be accessed either by using their webapp or by installing the mobile app, available on both Apple and Android.

They also have a Fold Card that can be used anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted – online, in stores, and over the phone. Currently, the Fold Card is only available in the United States.

Fold offers cashback on a range of different stores, big and small, these include Amazon, Lowe’s and DoorDash. Withdrawal of the funds you have earned is possible at any time, making it an easy and stressless experience to earn cashback with Fold. Fold also offers quite large cashback awards, with finding deals with over 15% cashback not being uncommon.

Whenever you buy a gift card with Lightning on their app, your account is given some credit towards future purchases with them.

The way Foldapp works in a nutshell is that they purchase $5, $10, $20 gift cards for cash and sell those gift cards at a 20% discount basically.

Lolli is a service which gives you a Bitcoin cashback when shopping at over 1000 different stores, with up to 30% Cashback on your purchases! Lolli is free to use and comes in the form of a chrome web extension. Through this, Lolli will notify you of deals on stores where cashback is possible. 

Lolli lets you earn on stores like Microsoft, and big brands like Sephora and Nike. Lolli has been featured in a lot of mainstream news sources and has managed to attain a rather strong reputation making it a trustworthy cashback program. 

You need to accumulate $10 USD worth of BTC before you can withdraw from Lolli.

Unfortunately, Lolli is only available in the US. Another downside is the mandatory KYC process you need to go through in order to be able to use the platform.

Read the full Lolli review here.

Pei, or “getpei” is another Chome Extension that provides you with crypto cashback for your purchases online. Offering cashback on an incredible range of over one hundred thousand retailers! Including Walmart and Macy’s. 

Pei supports an incredible range of products and retailers. Using Pei you can search through their eligible products and buy straight from a category of deals at your fingertips. Pei also makes use of a mobile app to help simplify the process for their users. Pei is free to use and offers about 2-4% cashback on most of their offers.

Pei isn’t always as simple to use as some of the other extensions on this list as you have to link your card to the extension in order to start using.

Earn.com is a different kind of cashback program compared to most of the others on this list. Rather than rewarding you for shopping and spending your money, with earn.com you can earn cryptocurrency without using any of your finances at all! Earn.com is a part of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, it is their new education section. On earn.com, you can undertake cryptocurrency education courses and be rewarded with cryptocurrency for your efforts to educate yourself. These rewards aren’t small either! With the total rewards available currently standing at $167! 

This is a great way to not only educate yourself on crypto which is an interesting topic in itself, but also earn cash while doing it!

StormX is another Bitcoin cashback program that awards you with coins for your online purchases. You can install StormX either on to your chrome browser or on to your mobile device. With StormX you are able to earn rewards on their array of supported stores, of which there are over 750 available. StormX has some of the best Bitcoin reward rates out there, you could earn up to 87.5% from your purchases in Bitcoin! This is an incredibly good rate to be earning at and should not be taken lightly! 

StormX supports a range of well-known stores too, not just stashing their discounts away with smaller stores. They give you cashback on brands such as Nike and Lego and on services such as Uber. One downside of StormX is their withdrawal limit, as you need to have amassed a total cashback of over $10 in order to take out your Bitcoin.

Through StormX you can also get paid for “microtasking”, these microtasks include things like surveys and other trivial ways of earning small amounts of cash, this is a great new feature as you would be hard pressed to find any other service that would fund these tasks in crypto. These tasks are facilitated through their cryptocurrency. StormX has a token which is used to fulfill smart contracts that need people to fill out surveys and other tasks.

With 4/5 stars on the Chrome web store, BitcoinRewards is a Chrome extension which finds you cashback on a range of over 1500 stores, including retail shopping, travel and other major industries! Through BitcoinRewards, you are able to earn a huge cashback of up to 50% of your initial purchase. 

The application is very easy to use too. Simply add the chrome extension to your browser and start shopping. From here, BitcoinExtensions will alert you to any available cashback and deals available on the stores you visit.

Although a smaller program than the previously mentioned BitcoinRewards, CoinRebates has a range of benefits that shouldn’t be ignored. Rather than operating as a Chrome extension, CoinRebates works by sending the cashback coins to your personal wallet, granted you have submitted your public address on their site and set up an account. CoinRebates offers cashback at 127 different stores, including Walmart, Expedia and Udemy, offering a maximum of 6 bits to the dollar on some stores (that’s about a 20% cashback!).

You may have to wait before signing up to CoinRebates though, as they are currently undergoing changes and are not accepting new customers, though this will likely change within the near future.

Both Stormx and Lolli are great platforms for earning cash on your purchases, offering great rates and on a phenomenal range or stores and brands, it is hard to fault either of these great projects. 

The first point of interest is the range of each of these choices, although both have a many stores accepting them for cashback, Lolli is quite firmly ahead of StormX, as Stormx supports 750+ sellers whereas Lolli goes well over a thousand. Again, it needs to be noted that this is not a major issue, and both of these are still large numbers of stores to provide cashback from.

Secondly, the two stores’ services offer competitive cashback rates, though through StormX’s system, it is a clear winner in terms of Cashback amount, offering up to 87.5%. This is a very high amount to offer and should be heavily considered. StormX also goes a step further in letting you withdraw in more currencies than just Bitcoin. Currencies available for withdrawal are: Bitcoin, Ethereum, StormX, Yearn.Finance, Litecoin and DAI.

Through this range of factors, we have to determine StormX as the better cashback solution overall, though if Lolli appears to be more to your taste, we encourage you to choose it.

The introduction of Bitcoin cashback programs, among other financial advancements in cryptocurrency will definitely help mass adoption. As these types of rewards and features become more used, more mainstream providers will begin to offer them, bringing them into the eye of the public and giving it the reputation of mainstream companies that people trust. 

Ofcourse! We always recommend doing your due diligence when it comes to programs like this, especially in the cryptocurrency space, but it is not impossible to find great deals out there, especially in a young market. Just make sure you fully trust whatever project you put your faith in before putting in any card details, your coins or any other sensitive information.

Rene Peters is editor-in-chief of CaptainAltcoin and is responsible for editorial planning and business development. After his training as an accountant, he studied diplomacy and economics and held various positions in one of the management consultancies and in couple of digital marketing agencies. He is particularly interested in the long-term implications of blockchain technology for politics, society and the economy.

Uber has “quickly dismissed” the idea of buying bitcoin with the cash on its balance sheet, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC Thursday.

“We’re going to keep our cash safe. We’re not in the speculation business,” he said. However, he left open the possibility of Uber eventually accepting cryptocurrencies as payment.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC on Thursday the company discussed but “quickly dismissed” the idea of buying bitcoin with corporate cash like Telsa.

However, Khosrowshahi said Uber would consider accepting cryptocurrencies as payment.

The comments come after Tesla announced earlier this week that it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin with some cash on its balance sheet and plans to begin accepting the digital coin as payment for its products. Tesla’s moves caught Wall Street’s attention and some wondered whether the electric-vehicle maker’s decision would be a tipping point for further crypto adoption.

In an interview on “Squawk Box,” Khosrowshahi was asked whether Uber had considered similar actions to Tesla. “It’s a conversation that’s happened that has been quickly dismissed,” he said. “We’re going to keep our cash safe. We’re not in the speculation business,” he stressed. “The upside in our company is in the business that we’ve built, not the investments that we invest in.”

As of Dec. 31, Uber reported it had $5.65 billion in cash and cash equivalents, along with $1.18 billion in short-term investments.

Khosrowshahi, who took over as Uber’s chief executive in 2017, left open the possibility that the ride-hailing and food-delivery provider would accept cryptocurrencies as payment.

“Just like we accept all kinds of local currency, we are going to look at cryptocurrency and/or bitcoin in terms of currency to transact,” he said. “That’s good for business. That’s good for our riders and our eaters. That we’ll certainly look at and if there’s a benefit there, if there’s a need there, we’ll do it. We’re just not going to do it as part of a promotion.”

On Wednesday, Mastercard announced intentions to open up its network to some cryptocurrencies, a move the credit card giant said will allow consumers and merchants “to transact in an entirely new form of payment.” Mastercard had already let customers do some transactions with cryptocurrencies, but they took place outside the company’s formal network.

The latest financial firm to put its weight behind crypto is BNY Mellon, which said Thursday it’s launching a digital assets division later this year. Shares of the oldest bank in America rose Thursday.

Proponents of companies buying bitcoin for their corporate cash argue that despite its day-to-day volatility, the digital coin has appreciated in value over the long term and will continue to do so. For that reason, supporters such as MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor feels it’s a more productive investment than keeping hordes of cash on the balance sheet.

Some skeptics worry about the volatility risks of bitcoin, which has enjoyed a massive run in recent months to trade above $48,000 per coin at all-time highs Thursday morning. A year ago, bitcoin traded below $11,000. While bitcoin has seen increased institutional adoption lately, some still believe there’s still too much uncertainty about its future.

Like Uber, PepsiCo CFO Hugh Johnston told CNBC on Thursday that the beverage giant has “had the conversation” about buying bitcoin with its cash. “The conclusion we came to pretty quickly was bitcoin is too speculative for the way we manage our cash portfolio,” Johnston said earlier on “Squawk Box,” shortly after the company reported better-than expected earnings and revenue. PepsiCo reported a fourth-quarter profit of $1.47 per share on revenue of $22.46 billion. Shares dropped Thursday.

As for Uber, its shares fell Thursday following the company’s mixed fourth-quarter earnings results. The stock advanced 6% during Wednesday’s session heading into the after-the-bell report. Uber said it lost 54 cents per share in the the fourth quarter, a slightly narrower than analyst expectations for a 56 cent loss. Revenue of $3.17 billion was below the $3.58 billion Wall Street had been looking for. The company’s overall loss for the quarter was $968 million, an improvement from the $1.1 billion loss in the same period last year.

Uber’s two largest businesses offerings — ride hailing and food delivery — have seen different fates during the coronavirus pandemic. The ride-hailing segment has suffered as people stayed home and traveled less. Conversely, Uber Eats has seen its usage soar as people ordered delivery instead of dining in at restaurants.

According to the Visa announcement, USDC, the Ethereum stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, will now be accepted as a means of payment on the Visa network. Revealing the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies and the entire crypto space.

— VisaNews (@VisaNews) March 29, 2021

Visa disclosed that the new initiative followed its partnership with one of the leading crypto exchanges, Crypto.com, and California-based crypto bank, Anchorage.

The payment giant further stated that by enabling support for the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization via Crypto.com, it has eliminated the need to convert the digital assets into fiat currency for payment of transactions in its network. Additionally, Visa will start offering the same service to more partners shortly. Currently, Visa partners about 35 crypto platforms like Coinbase and BlockFi.

Speaking about the new initiative, Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, said that the new initiative was also possible because Crypto.com recently announced its Global Alliance partnership and principal membership with Visa.

For Crypto.com, it means their users who hold USDC in their wallets can spend it using the Visa card without actually having to convert USDC tokens to USD. Basically, the user can send USDC from his ETH wallet address in Anchorage custody under Visa’s name. This will enable making payments in USDC at point of sales that accept Visa cards.

“To continue accelerating the world’s transition to cryptocurrency, we need partners who understand the opportunity and the tools that will help us get to market faster and more efficiently. Having been a Visa partner for several years, we’re excited to deepen that relationship through our global agreement and to pioneer an exciting world-first in stablecoin payments,” Kris Marszalek stated.

He further shared that the exchange’s new blockchain initiative would issue USDC soon. He said, “To further support this effort, Crypto.org Chain will work to enable native USDC issuance on its network later this year. All the pieces are coming together 🚀”

The card was connected directly to a USDC wallet and transactions were settled to Visa in USDC. https://t.co/b9xzZA9fOk

— Kris | Crypto.com (@Kris_HK) March 29, 2021

Notably, the Global Crypto Alliance is a borderless organization that specializes in decentralized business development and blockchain ecosystems.

Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, while expressing his excitement with the new initiative, stated that it happened as a result of the increasing demand from users to create products that provide easy access for consumers to digital assets.

He said, “We see increasing demand from consumers across the world to be able to access, hold and use digital currencies and we’re seeing demand from our clients to be able to build products that provide that access for consumers.”

Similarly, Jack Forestell, Chief Product Officer of Visa, said the blockchain firm’s decision to allow the use of USDC to settle transactions on its payment network was in a bid to offer financial-technology firms premium service.

“Crypto-native fintechs want partners who understand their business and the complexities of digital currency,” he said.

Also expressing delight with the new initiative, Diogo Mónica, co-founder and president of Anchorage, said the crypto bank was fully equipped to handle the new products. “Anchorage’s platform has been purposefully built for institutions like Visa to build new products in crypto,” she said.

It is important to note that Visa isn’t the only multinational corporation to have recently adopted digital currencies. Last week, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, announced that the American electric maker now accepts Bitcoin as a means of payment for its cars.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2021

The announcement by the Tesla CEO has invariably shown that more major organizations are now embracing Bitcoin. Like Tesla, other firms like PayPal, Rakuten, Twitch, Starbucks, Overstock.com, Whole Foods, amongst others now accept the king of crypto as a means of payment.

As a result of Visa’s announcement, Bitcoin price has rallied by 5.1%, again facing an upward trend, heading back toward its all-time high of $61,000.

At the time of publication, the top token’s price was trading at $57,925.68, with a market cap of $1,081,348,892,047 and a 24-hour trading volume of $56,213,447,120.

Crypto.com Coin’s (CRO) price has rallied by 9.8% in the last 24 hours. The token was trading at $0.2233, with a market cap of $5,132,384,117 and a 24-hour trading volume of $156,943,746. CRO currently has a circulating supply of 25.2 billion coins.

Join Altcoin Buzz on Telegram to receive free trading signals.

Find out more about blockchain technology and the entire crypto space on the Altcoin Buzz YouTube channel.

Bitcoin has been round for over a decade now, however lots of people are nonetheless confused about what it really… is.

Some suppose it’s the best way of the longer term and can exchange cash and the way we spend it. Others examine it to the Dutch Tulip Bubble again within the 1600s that had folks paying eye watering quantities for flower bulbs.

Regardless, should you haven’t already jumped on board the cryptocurrency practice, I’m positive you’ve no less than heard of Bitcoin (BTC), or like many, you’re ready anxiously on the station on your likelihood to turn out to be a part of the most recent on-line “excessive society membership.” Perhaps you heard Elon Musk announce not too long ago that Tesla had recently bought stakes in Bitcoin price US$1.5 billion, driving Bitcoin’s worth even additional up.

Regardless, it’s not going away any time quickly — so let’s get our head round what cryptocurrency is.

Effectively — probably the most primary clarification is, it’s digital cash.

It lives on-line, you possibly can’t bodily maintain it in your hand. However its worth has elevated faster than every other commodity identified to man.

Like all foreign money, its worth goes up or down daily. Some will examine it to playing, like taking part in the pokies. Others, who’ve invested and made severe financial institution, say it’s the latest solution to get wealthy and deal with it like the brand new age inventory market.

Theres additionally the random fortunate ones who invested when worth was minimal — and forgot.

Or obtained given the coin when it wasn’t price a lot and are actually seeing greenback indicators, like YouTuber Ali Spagnoli, who obtained DONATED $50 price of BTC in 2013 which she forgot about, that’s now price over $40k.

Nevertheless, Bitcoin is simply ONE of many “digital cash” that you may put money into, or personal, that make up the latest type of foreign money, that we now know as cryptocurrency, or crypto.

The primary discuss of Bitcoin or Cryptocurrency was in 2008.

A doc identified, fairly clearly, because the Bitcoin white paper was launched. It defined how this new digital greenback can be decentralised — which simply means it could lower out third events, resembling banks, governments and different organisations who cost us charges to handle our cash.

Like a web-based ledger, transactions are in a position to be seen by anybody, though customers can nonetheless stay nameless. Every transaction has its personal contract to document its historical past. So, you possibly can monitor any coin again to when it was first created, and when and the way a lot its worth has modified over time, which is fairly cool.

The idea for this modernised cash was based mostly on a block chain. That are simply blocks of data linked collectively. Because of difficult know-how that hyperlinks the chain, the knowledge can’t be modified or manipulated, making dishonest transactions virtually inconceivable.

After all, like something you put money into, there are some dangers concerned.

Your pockets, which is a web-based account, is digital and guarded by codes and passwords that will likely be exhausting to entry should you overlook or lose them. It’s not like while you lose your pockets on the pub or a celebration and you’ll simply go and order all new playing cards.

There are already thousands and thousands of “misplaced cash” from folks forgetting or losing their wallet particulars.

Scams and fraudsters additionally exist within the Crypto world. For that reason anonymity is sort of widespread.

Some folks have made big quantities of wealth and like to maintain their identification supressed. While most are simply cautious with their particulars to keep away from being focused by hackers and identification thieves.

So, like something, it’s good to analysis whether or not a coin alternate or website is legit earlier than placing down your cash.

Bitcoin turned obtainable to the general public in 2009, a 12 months after the white paper report.

Because the coin has grown in reputation, actually THOUSANDS of crypto cash have since been created. As of January 2021, there was over 4 THOUSAND completely different cash you possibly can put money into.

Any coin that ISN’T a bitcoin, is commonly often known as an “alt coin” or “shitcoin” as a result of Bitcoin was the very first, the unique. A few of the different common cryptocurrencies are Ethereum (ETH), Chainlink (LINK), Polkadot (DOT) & Litecoin (LTC).

When bitcoin first hit the market, they had been price $0.0008 every. On the time of writing this text, one Bitcoin was price $63, 128.64 Australian {dollars} every.

Individuals who invested in giant numbers of Bitcoins after they had been first created and held onto them, are LITERALLY multi- millionaires!

If somebody purchased 500 Bitcoins after they first hit the market, at $0.0008 every and held onto them, their crypto pockets can be price $31, 564, 320.00, on cash that initially value lower than 50c.

Some main manufacturers and retailer chains have already jumped aboard the crypto practice, accepting the digital foreign money to make funds. Different firms have began providing Bitcoin debit cards, permitting customers to make use of their digital cash virtually wherever that accepts EFTPOS.

It was solely again in September 2017 that Jamie Dimon the Chairman & CEO of Wall Avenue Banking powerhouse JPMorgan, known as Bitcoin a fraud. Dimon mentioned “it’s worse than Tulip bulbs, it gained’t finish nicely, somebody will get killed.”

It was lower than 2 years later, in February 2019, that the corporate introduced the “JPM Coin” was being launched for business use utilizing the block chain know-how.

Microsoft & Wikileaks have additionally apparently began accepting Bitcoin. Luxurious automotive and fast-food retailers internationally have additionally dabbled in crypto funds.

The primary transaction utilizing Crypto to pay for a product was made by a person named Laszlo Hanyecz on the 22nd of Might 2010. The person ordered 2 giant pizzas which got here to about $30.

He paid utilizing Bitcoin when it was price about $0.003. Hanyecz paid 10 000 Bitcoins for what you possibly can think about have to be the world’s most costly pizza order ever. A cheeky $631, 286, 400.00 in at the moment’s worth.

The times is now unofficially known as Bitcoin Pizza Day.

And it’s not simply your typical buyers shopping for into the brand new money- making craze. Persons are promoting digital artwork items within the crypto world already. One artist pocketed a cool million promoting a bit known as Endlessly Rose to 10 consumers on Valentine’s Day 2018, who all now personal a fraction of the picture every.

So, subsequent time you hear folks speaking about earning money of their sleep, know they is probably not joking, it’s completely doable. You might even have an nameless millionaire in your circle. Have you ever jumped on board but?

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Bitcoin (BTC) has a lot of myths, and one of them is about its privacy. The first cryptocurrency wasn’t designed to be private, let alone anonymous. It’s the opposite, indeed. Its blockchain is a public one, which means anybody can check all the transactions and their details on the Internet. That’s why Monero (XMR) was created.

Monero is an open-source and mineable cryptocurrency, just like Bitcoin. Anyone can open a wallet and send and receive transactions. However, its blockchain is obfuscated. This means that no one outside the involved people can tell the source, amount, or destination.

The technology used to reach that kind of privacy are ring signatures, stealth addresses, and non-interactive zero-knowledge proof (NIZKP). With these cryptographic protocols, the important details of every transaction are hidden from the public. Additionally, the function Dandelion ++, implemented in 2020, lets the users obscuring their IP addresses.

Therefore, if you’re careful, no one should know a thing about your finances while using XMR. Nevertheless, as they explain in the official webpage, Monero does its best, but isn’t magical:

“Monero is not magic. If you use Monero but give your name and address to another party, the other party will not magically forget your name and address. If you give out your secret keys, others will know what you’ve done. If you get compromised, others will be able to keylog you. If you use a weak password, others will be able to brute force your keys file. If you backup your seed in the cloud, you’ll be poorer soon.”

If you check the original whitepaper, the names you’ll find there are “CryptoNote v2.0” and Nicolas van Saberhagen (2013). Nobody knows who that is, though. As for the CryptoNote thing, that is a privacy-focused protocol that powers several private coins —including Monero until 2019.

Previously, the first cryptocurrency to implement CryptoNote was Bytecoin (BCN). In April 2014, a Bitcointalk user dubbed “thankful_for_today” decided to make a fork (copy) of it to apply several improvements, including the fixing of “a number of technical and marketing issues”. It would be a separate currency from the scratch, though. They called it “BitMonero”, from Bitcoin and the Esperanto word for “coin”.

Soon after, BitMonero presented some technical and governance issues, for which the community was very unsatisfied. Thankful_for_today disappeared, abandoning the project, but some developers were still interested in the original idea. So, they joined forces to make a new fork with improvements and called it just Monero.

Most of them never revealed their identities. Initially, the Monero Core Team was formed by othe, smooth, binaryFate, luigi1111, NoddleDoodle, tacotime, Franciso «ArticMine» Cabañas, and Riccardo «fluffypony» Spagni. By 2021, at least tacotime and Spagni have stepped down.

Mostly, you can use Monero as any other cryptocurrency. First things first: you’ll need a wallet. And a lot are listing XMR to date, including options for mobile and desktop devices, and hardware wallets like Ledger or Trezor. Others we can mention are Monero GUI (the original Monero wallet), My Monero, Lightwallet, or Exodus (multicurrency).

Now, beyond the mere wallet, you’ll need to know some extra terms to protect your privacy. Just like Bitcoin, Monero also uses addresses (they’re longer, though – 95 characters) and a Mnemonic phrase or seed to recover your funds in another device (25 words). The extras are the Private View Key and the Private Spend Key.

The Private View Key has to do with the fact that you can’t publicly view any transaction and its details on the Monero blockchain. So, if you want to check your transaction or show it to someone else, you’ll need to input this key in the explorer, along with the transaction ID and the deposit address.

On the other hand, the Private Spend Key isn’t shareable. This is the “master key” of your Monero account, with which it’s possible to spend all the XMR associated with that address. Additionally, to create a new address for every transaction (a subaddress) and increase your privacy that way, you’ll need to activate the function in your wallet of choice.

Well, for starting, you can pay for goods and services worldwide. According to Cryptwerk, over 900 merchants and venues accept this cryptocurrency as a payment. That includes all kinds of shops and markets (electronics, books, vehicles, clothing, food, music, pharmacies, gift cards, etc.), Internet services, business services, offline services (restaurants, education, entertainment, medicine, real estate, etc.), tourism and gambling.

On the other hand, you can also mine XMR, since it’s a lot easier than other cryptos, like Bitcoin. From 2019, they applied the new mining algorithm RandomX. With it, they want to avoid that XMR can be minted by ASIC miners (specialized machines) and high-end GPUs. So, anyone with a CPU (laptop or PC) can mine Monero. You can do this by downloading the required app and (preferably) joining a pool.

Of course, you can also hodl it. A Ukrainian politician did it since 2015, by buying around $58,100 in XMR. Now he has over $43m. But if you need to exchange it for fiat money (or decide to buy it), you can always use Alfacash!

Complete anonymity isn’t something very welcomed by authorities, we must say. Last year, Europol stated that privacy methods in cryptocurrency, like digital wallets, open markets, and yes, privacy coins as Monero, can facilitate criminal activity. Of course, that’s not always true, and activities like money laundering are still a way lot more popular with traditional cash.

Despite that fact, France’s finance committee has recommended a ban for these coins, the U.S. secret service is probably investigating them right now, several exchanges worldwide have delisted these coins due to banking or regulatory pressures and, the cherry on the cake, Japan and South Korea have already banned the privacy coins.

Beyond the current bans in the said countries, there are also some existent regulations for privacy coins, as the legal firm Perkins Coie described in a whitepaper. Maybe they differ in some small things, but these rules and guides basically come down to one thing and one party: Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) applying Know-Your-Customer (KYC) processes. In other words, crypto-exchanges and the like asking for personal data and documents to their customers before allowing any trade.

In any case, according to a recent study by the non-profit consulting firm RAND Corporation, “While privacy coins may theoretically seem a boon to users engaged in illicit or criminal activities, various practical considerations may, in fact, make them less attractive for conducting illicit transactions on the dark web”.

Against all odds, Monero keeps thriving. Year-to-date, its price has increased by over 41% and it has a market capitalization of $4.2b so far [CoinMarketCap]. The following regulations, more than cut its development, could make it grow stronger and with more trust.