PayPal users got their first taste of paying with cryptocurrency on the platform yesterday after the payments giant launched its merchant payment services. The move comes four months after the company launched its crypto investing platform and ushers in a new wave of crypto adoption, with PayPal crypto users now able to spend their gains at millions of retailers. However, the fact that users have to convert to a fiat currency before spending their money adds a level of friction that it had been hoped would be avoided.

The ability to pay for goods and services with cryptocurrency was one of the big selling points of PayPal’s cryptocurrency offering, and its rollout was greeted with fanfare across both crypto and mainstream outlets. However, the fact that the cryptocurrency has to be converted into fiat currency at the point of sale almost negates the purpose and raises the question of what accepting cryptocurrency as a payment method actually means in practice.

It seems then that what the platform actually offers is the ability for PayPal cryptocurrency users to sell their tokens in return for cash which they can then use at one of PayPal’s 29 million merchants…which surely they would have been able to do anyway. If the platform converted the cryptocurrency for them at point of sale then it would be interesting, but it seems that this is a manual job required to be carried out by the user, which kind of negates the big selling points.

PayPal’s news came a day after Visa announced that it was embarking on a pilot program to allows USDC holders on the Crypto.com platform to pay at Visa-enabled terminals without having to first convert into fiat. While only a small scale pilot, this method of using crypto to pay for goods and services is a more appealing prospect for users, although of course it has its own drawbacks.

The position of Bitcoin as the number cryptocurrency in the world is unquestionable. Even those unfamiliar with the crypto world, in general, know Bitcoin, if only by name. However, despite its value and popularity, Bitcoin has some underlying problems in terms of usability.

  It is in an attempt to solve this problem that Wrapped Bitcoin or BTC was created. Wrapped Bitcoin(WBTC) is an ERC-20 token with the same value as BTC, which represents Bitcoin on the Ethereum blockchain. By doing this, Bitcoin can be used for transactions on the Ethereum blockchain without having to convert it to Ethereum.

Bitcoin tokens can be converted into wBTC and vice versa using various platforms. This gives Bitcoin owners incredible flexibility in the way they use the currency.

You may wonder what the essence of wrapped Bitcoin is and why anyone would want to convert their Bitcoin into a wrapped token. The answer lies in the limitations of Bitcoin.

While Bitcoin might be the most valuable cryptocurrency by a mile, it does not compare with Ethereum in terms of functionality. The Ethereum ecosystem is the largest and most functional blockchain ecosystem for cryptocurrencies. It hosts several Dapps, wallets, DEXs, smart contracts, and games. 

Since Bitcoin cannot be used directly on this ecosystem, there would be a need to convert it to ETH first. But with a wrapped Bitcoin, you can use Bitcoin directly on Ethereum without having to exchange it.

Wrapped Bitcoin makes the market have more liquidity. With several Decentralized exchanges and other platforms that exist on the Ethereum ecosystem, liquidity can pose a problem when trading token. But Bitcoin offers more liquidity, and its seamless integration into Ethereum as wrapped Bitcoin ensures optimal functionality.

A wrapped Bitcoin holder will have access to capabilities that Bitcoin itself does not have. For example, wrapped Bitcoin can be used in creating smart contracts, which Ethereum performs better at than Bitcoin.

If you hold Bitcoin and want to perform a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem, you will have to consider trading it for ETH first. For wrapped Bitcoin, this does not have to happen. Since it is already on the Ethereum blockchain, the transaction will be less expensive and faster. You will also have more options for storage and transactions.

DeFi applications are one of the major developments on Ethereum. These decentralized finance platforms hold a lot of potentials as well as multiple functionalities. One of such functionalities lets you safelock your cryptocurrency with a smart contract for some time while you earn rewards on it. You can stake your wBTC using any of these protocols that allows for that and earn on it.

This is another DeFi capability. It is similar to Staking, except that it lasts for a shorter period. Some yield farming protocols will also allow users to lend out your cryptocurrencies in exchange for an interest instance; you can lend out your wBTC on Compound to other users and earn interest on it.

The benefits of wBTC are numerous, which explains its growth in recent months. As of press time, the asset has a market cap that is well over $7 billion, an indication of its growth and its usage by market players. 

When it comes to wrapping Bitcoin, there are several models available, all of which will create Bitcoin that can be used on the Ethereum blockchain. The common ones are;

In this strategy, you give your BTC to a centralized intermediary in exchange for an ERC-20 token of equal value while they lock up your BTC in a smart contract. BitGo operates with this strategy.

This process is through a decentralized system. A smart contract on the network will hold your BTC, and the platform cannot modify such a contract without getting your approval. This system is autonomous.

In this format, your BTC is locked in a cryptocurrency and in exchange, you will get a synthetic asset of proportionate value. Your BTC is not backed up by BTC but rather the native tokens on the platform.

Wrapped Bitcoin offers a lot of benefits and holds significant potential. This explains its significant growth. However, it is not without challenges. The most notable one is the risks involved.

Earlier trust platforms could gain access to the smart contract and replace the real BTC with a fake one. Centralization and concentration is also a problem, with only a few platforms holding a large amount of BTC in their custody.

Beyond those risks, wBTC has a lot of potentials, and wrapping is quite easy with several platforms available to help with that.

Global investors actively seek out exposure to Bitcoin in different ways. Tokenizing this network’s hashrate through the BTCST token provides investors with opportunities related to Bitcoin mining. BTCST offers broader exposure to this segment and creates DeFi opportunities for Bitcoin.

BTCST is backed by leading industry miners who represent 12% of the total Bitcoin mining community. Any miner can tokenize and standardize their hashrate if they so desire.

To further enhance the market circulation of BTCST, token issuer Standard Hashrate Group will officially join the TRON ecosystem. A TRON bridge launched on March 16, 2021, at 9:00AM SGT to convert BTCST-BEP20 to BTCST-TRC20 and vice versa. Bridging transactions will not impact the overall BTCST token circulation. Standard Hashrate Group and its miner members will convert 15,000 BTCST-BEP-20 to 15,000 BTCST-TRC20 via the TRON bridge.

Additionally, the staking, mining and unstaking functionality of the token remain exclusive to Binance Smart Chain users, as BTCST-BEP20 holders are the only ones who can access the DApp.

Choosing TRON as a blockchain to expand our ecosystem allows Standard Hashrate Group to enrich the application scenarios of BTCST. TRON provides high-speed performance and low network fees –  two aspects that will prove beneficial for the token’s future adoption. Furthermore, SHG will form new partnerships with the existing TRON ecosystem to elevate the future of Bitcoin and DeFi in the upcoming BTCST v2 upgrade.

TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet through blockchain technology and decentralized applications. Founded in September 2017 by Justin Sun, the company has delivered a series of achievements, including the MainNet launch in May 2018, network independence in June 2018 and TRON virtual machine launch in August 2018. July 2018 also marked the acquisition of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized services boasting approximately 100 million monthly active users.

BTCST is the blockchain industry’s first Bitcoin leveraged hashrate token and the first hashrate token to launch on Binance Launchpool. Since BTCST launched, it has ranked first among Binance Launchpool projects as measured by TVL. BTCST creates an efficient market for Bitcoin mining power in ways similar to how Grayscale Bitcoin Trust creates institutional liquidity for Bitcoin. BTCST is a BSC-based smart contract with no private equity, zero venture capital and zero team token reserves. BTCST completely relies on community autonomy and has passed the scrutiny of CertiK and Armor Labs, two of the world’s leading blockchain security firms.

BTCST has partnered with five institutional miners that together represent 12% of the entire Bitcoin hashrate –  BTC.TOP, Easy2Mine, Genesis Mining, Atlas Mining and Hengjia Group. BTCST is supported by Trust Wallet, MathWallet, TokenPocket, SafePal and other wallets. At present, BTCST is listed on Binance and PancakeSwap.

TRON | BTCST

San Francisco, California, 16th March, 2021, // ChainWire //

The Bitcoin Standard Hashrate Token launched by Binance LaunchPool provides a tokenized representation of the Bitcoin network hashrate. The TRON Bridge facilitating this ecosystem’s ongoing growth went live on MARCH 16 at 09:00 AM SGT. 

Global investors actively seek out exposure to Bitcoin in different ways. Tokenizing this network’s hashrate through the BTCST token provides investors with opportunities related to Bitcoin mining. BTCST offers broader exposure to this segment and creates DeFi opportunities for Bitcoin. 

BTCST is backed by leading industry miners who represent 12% of the total Bitcoin mining community. Any miner can tokenize and standardize their hashrate if they so desire. 

To further enhance the market circulation of BTCST, token issuer Standard Hashrate Group will officially join the TRON ecosystem. A TRON Bridge will launch on March 15 at 9:00AM SGT to convert BTCST-BEP20 to BTCST-TRC20 and vice versa. Bridging transactions will not impact the overall BTCST token circulation. Standard Hashrate Group and its miner members will convert 15,000 BTCST-BEP-20 to 15,000 BTCST-TRC20 via the TRON bridge. 

Additionally, the staking, mining, and unstaking functionality of the token remain exclusive to Binance Smart Chain users, as BTCST-BEP20 holders are the only ones who can access the DApp.  

Choosing TRON as a blockchain to expand our ecosystem allows Standard Hashrate Group to enrich the application scenarios of BTCST. TRON provides high-speed performance and low network fees, two aspects that will prove beneficial for the token’s future adoption. Furthermore, SHG will form new partnerships with the existing TRON ecosystem to elevate the future of Bitcoin and DeFi in the upcoming BTCST v2 upgrade. 

About TRON

TRON is dedicated to accelerating and the decentralization of the internet through blockchain technology and decentralized applications. Founded in September 2017 by Justin Sun, the company has delivered a series of achievements, including MainNet launch on May 2018, network independence on June 2018, and TRON Virtual Machine launch on August 2018. July 2018 also marked the acquisition of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized services boasting approximately 100M monthly active users.

About BTCST

BTCST is the blockchain industry’s first Bitcoin leveraged hashrate token and the first hashrate token to launch on Binance Launchpool. Since BTCST launched, it has ranked first among Binance LaunchPool projects as measured by TVL.BTCST creates an efficient market for Bitcoin mining power in ways similar to how Grayscale Bitcoin Trust creates institutional liquidity for Bitcoin. BTCST is a BSC-based smart contract with no private equity, zero venture capital, and zero team token reserves. BTCST completely relies on community autonomy and has passed the scrutiny of CertiK and Armor Labs, two of the world’s leading blockchain security firms.

BTCST has partnered with five institutional miners that together represent 12% of the entire Bitcoin hashrate: BTC.TOP, Easy2Mine, Genesis Mining, Atlas Mining, and Hengjia Group. BTCST is supported by Trust Wallet, MathWallet, TokenPocket, SafePal, and other wallets. At present, BTCST is listed on Binance and PancakeSwap.

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RelayX’s decentralized exchange (REX) has a new stablecoin trading pair. Today, RelayX announced that they have listed a USDC/BSV trading pair on REX; this is the second trading pair to be listed on the exchange (SHUA/BSV was the first).

Bridge creation / withdraws of USDC ERC-20 to come pic.twitter.com/8sOE6aYgaD

— RelayX (@relayxio) March 18, 2021

USDC on BSV has actually existed for quite some time now. The RelayX team introduced USDC to the Bitcoin blockchain back in September. But adding USDC to REX simplified the process of obtaining USDC and it created an easy off-ramp for USDC holders.

— RelayX (@relayxio) September 26, 2020

The benefits of stablecoins

Stablecoins are useful because they allow you to escape the volatility that accompanies holding most digital currencies, yet, stablecoins give you an easy way to trade in and out of digital assets.

You can seek shelter in fiat when you are worried about the volatility in digital currency, however, converting to fiat is a taxable event, and the digital currency exchange you use to convert will charge a fee for the conversion. 

If you would like to turn that fiat back into a coin or token, you must convert your fiat back into digital currency, which will also require you to pay a fee.

So instead of paying a fee to convert to fiat, paying taxes on your capital gains, and then a fee to convert back to fiat, you can simply trade your digital currency for USDC –which is pegged to the dollar. If you decide you want to own digital currency again, you can use REX’s BSV/USDC trading pair to re-enter.

By using a stablecoin, you eliminate the digital currency to fiat conversion fee, the taxable event, and the fiat to digital currency fee from the equation.

Why stablecoins on BSV make the most sense

The USDC stablecoin exists on many blockchains, but the fee associated with sending USDC is the lowest on the BSV blockchain.

“To issue $1.21 of USDC RUN to myself, the fee was 1,000 satoshis or 1/5 of a cent at $175 BSV,” said Joshua Henslee when he was testing USDC on the Bitcoin blockchain back in October.

“If I wanted to send $1.21 of USDC on Ethereum , the fee would be 0.009 ETH or $3.27 (at $364 Ethereum) – near triple the send amount.”

Now that ethereum is experiencing far more traffic than it was in early October, I would not be surprised if that fee to send USDC is even higher.

How to get USDC on BSV.

The USDC/BSV trading pair is live on REX , Bitcoin’s first fully decentralized, trustless, non-custodial, peer-to-peer DeFi order book.

To convert your BSV to USDC, or your USDC to BSV, head over to relayx.com/market.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.

Latvia’s flag air carrier, airBaltic, has reaffirmed its pro-cryptocurrency approach by enabling customers to make bookings with cryptocurrency, including Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. Those tokens have joined the list of four USD-pegged stablecoins and the first-ever cryptocurrency – Bitcoin.

AS Air Baltic Corporation, also referred to as simply airBaltic is Latvia’s flag carrier that has also displayed a pro-digital asset approach for years. Back in 2014, the company became one of the first airliners to accept payments made with the primary cryptocurrency for its flight tickets.

Earlier today, airBaltic announced the addition of a new set of coins allowing customers to choose between more tokens when booking flights. These include Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. As a result, the company now accepts a total of eight cryptocurrencies. Apart from the four mentioned above, the others are four stablecoins pegged to the US dollar – GUSD, USDC, PAX, and BUSD.

The latest addition comes with the help of crypto payment service provider – BitPay. However, it’s worth noting that unlike Tesla, which recently enabled BTC payments for its vehicles and said it will retain them in BTC, airBaltic will convert the assets into fiat.

When users choose the desired service on airBaltic’s website, the prices will be displayed in euros, but when they pay for them, the crypto asset selected will be converted into euros automatically at the current exchange rate determined by BitPay.

AirBaltic CEO, Martin Gauss, stated:

“As an innovative airline, we always strive to search for ways to improve the customer experience starting from the booking process. Over the years, 1,000 clients have used the payment option, which may not seem like a lot, but still offers passengers a unique payment option hard to find elsewhere.”

Dogecoin has been rapidly increasing in popularity recently, perhaps led by the continuous social media endorsement from Tesla’s Elon Musk. Following dozens of his pro-DOGE tweets, the token received attention from other celebrities, such as rapper Snoop Dogg. The snowball effect was on, and DOGE became a sensation among renowned individuals. Dogecoin even reached the NBA as the Dallas Mavericks enabled payments with it.

To the question of why his team has added DOGE as a payment option, the club’s owner, Mark Cuban, emphatically said because we can at the time. This growing usage of DOGE has also led to a significant price increase. The asset is up by more than 800% since the start of the year and registered a new all-time high last month.

You can see the BTC price here.

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Several companies that offer physical debit cards linked to a mobile app to send cryptocurrencies around the world. But not all Bitcoin debit cards allow multi-currencies such as digital assets and fiat currencies to be stored.

Wirex is a well-established company that launched the world's first crypto-enabled VISA card and crypto-friendly Mastercard to allow individuals all over the world to transfer and spend crypto and fiat currencies using a single app and card.

Designed For Everyone

Spend Crypto Worldwide

Supported Currencies

The multicurrency Wirex Card is one of the few debit cards on the market that allows individuals to spend traditional fiat currencies and digital assets. Cardholders can transfer popular cryptocurrencies to spend such as BTC, LTC, XRP, ETH, WAVES, DAI, NANO and XLM. The card does not accept stablecoins and should be considered.

There are 9 supported fiat currencies which include the USD, EUR, GBP, CZK, HUF, PLN, RON and HRK. Each currency loaded to the card is automatically converted in real-time with zero-exchange fees to the local currency used at the point-of-sale machine where the purchase was made. 

No Exchange Fees

The Wirex multi-currency debit card can store both cryptocurrencies and traditional money such as the USD, GBP and EUR. Cardholders that that pay for goods and services internationally at any VISA and Mastercard merchant using the card will automatically convert the balance on the card to the countries local currency. This means zero foreign conversion costs, bank charges when spending abroad.

Wirex is a legitimate business which a current valuation of £125m and on-track to exceed over $2B in gross revenue in 2021. The company operates in over 130 countries worldwide and is regulated in several jurisdictions including the UK, USA, Canada, Europe, Japan and Singapore. The Wirex app has been downloaded over 1 million times and its crypto-based products have served over 1.3 million users and have seen explosive growth in Europe and Asia in recent years.

Wirex is an authorized platform that is licensed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and adheres to the strict policies and rules set out by the FCA for the protection of its client's money. Similarly, Wirex is mandated under the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to operate in the US and the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada ("FINTRAC") to ensure a transparent, safe and secure environment is provided for its users worldwide.

Users who are over the age of 18 years old can open an account with Wirex using the website or mobile app on iOS or Android supported devices. New customers must complete a Know Your Customer (KYC) process as per the countries laws and regulations and will be prompted to provide a valid email address, mobile phone number, personal details, Government or state-issued ID, driver’s license, passport or passport card. 

The verification process can be undertaken using the website or mobile app and takes less than 24 hours for approval.

Similarly, users that convert fiat currency to another (e.g. USD to EUR) using the Wirex App can obtain a better overall conversion price using an interbank rate. These rates are used by large banks and financial institutions for large-scale foreign exchange transactions and can have tighter spreads compared to smaller retail FX exchange companies. 

The Wirex paid plans include the same features as the free plan, however come with a few additional perks and extras which may suit certain individuals that travel frequently or high volume spenders. The benefits include:

The cost of the Premium plan is 1,000 WXT per month and Elite is 3,000 WXT per month. At the time of writing is the equivalent of USD 0.01, which equates to $10 and $30 respectively for the upgrade plans.

There are several fees associated using Wirex's products and services which include crypto top-ups, ATM withdrawals and balance queries. To view the full list of Wirex fees and limits, visit the website.

Existing cardholders can deposit funds to top up their wallet balances. The cheapest way to add funds to a Wirex account is using a bank transfer which does not charge a fee to deposit fiat currency.

Wirex users in the UK can withdrawal fiat currency from a wallet using a bank transfer via SEPA or Faster Payments which incur no charges. However, for international fiat withdrawals using the SWIFT network, Wirex applies a small fee of USD $15. 

Wirex offers a free plan which includes the full suite of services and features to customers such as the payment app and multi-currency debit card. There are paid plans that vary between USD $10-30 which include additional benefits and perks for its users such as higher cashback rewards and access to premium offers and discounts from merchants.

Wirex is rapidly expanding its offering of fiat and crypto services to multiple jurisdictions worldwide and is currently supported in over 130 countries, including Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The company undergoes all local regulatory compliance procedures in each country before the Wirex account, crypto account or multi-currency card is launched. For a full list of supported countries, visit the website.

The Wirex Token (WXT) is the native cryptocurrency token of the Wirex digital payment platform. The token is a utility coin that is based on the Stellar blockchain network and subject to price fluctuations on cryptocurrency trading platforms. WXT tokens can be bought and sold on the Wirex Exchange using fiat or digital currencies. Holders of WXT tokens are eligible for increased crypto-cashbacks when using the debit card for online purchases.

Wirex does not provide the feature to allow its customers to earn interest on cryptocurrencies. Digital currencies that are deposited to the app or card can be converted to fiat or other cryptos, but do not earn any interest within the wallet. Users will need to use a platform such as Crypto.com or Binance, which offers savings accounts to earn interest which can be transferred to a debit card to spend.

The first such settlement in USDC – a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio and transacted over the Ethereum blockchain – was conducted earlier this month, Visa and its partner Crypto.com announced on Monday. The crypto platform sent USDC to Visa’s Ethereum address at digital asset bank Anchorage.

The move marks “a huge milestone for the industry as crypto and fiat networks begin to converge,” Visa’s partner Crypto.com said on Twitter.

“The announcement today marks a major milestone in our ability to address the needs of fintechs managing their business in a stablecoin or cryptocurrency, and it’s really an extension of what we do every day,” Jack Forestell, Visa’s executive vice president and chief product officer, said in statement.

Visa’s settlement process initially required Crypto.com to settle in a fiat currency, which could result in additional costs and complexity for businesses. The latest step would allow payments to be settled directly in USDC without converting the cryptocurrency into traditional money.

Visa plans to expand the program, offering USDC settlement capability to more partners later this year after additional tests and talks with clients, the company said. Work with stablecoins could further allow the payment provider to support sovereign digital currencies, known as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), as more and more countries are currently developing their own tokens.

The global payments giant and the crypto platform have been partners for several years. In 2018, they launched a Crypto.com Visa card, allowing users’ crypto to be converted into one of the supported fiat currencies.

Digital currencies have become more broadly accepted by the mainstream financial industry in recent months. Visa’s rival credit card giant Mastercard announced in February that it plans to allow payments in certain cryptocurrencies on its network this year. Payments companies Square and PayPal have also backed cryptocurrencies.

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The BTC price is struggling to get back to its recent highs above $60k. The flagship digital asset dipped to lows of $53K during the Asia-Pacific session but has since managed to gain some ground. 

Bulls temporarily took over bitcoin’s price action resulting in a recovery above $54,500. During the European session, the BTC/USD exchange rate rebounded by over 2.5% and revisited the psychological price floor at $55K.

There was a retest of $57K as investors flocked to re-accumulate the king coin. That uphill move raised expectations among traders that BTC would hold above the support at $55K during the US session. 

At the time of writing, the world’s leading cryptocurrency is down 3.43% at its price of $55,685. If bitcoin fails to correct higher above $56,000, there is a possibility of more downsides towards the $54K support in the near SD Chart By TradingView

Even though BTC has failed to extend its rebound towards $58K, bitcoin’s Energy Value Oscillator says that the current bull cycle still has plenty of room to grow.

The metric, designed by renowned crypto analyst and bitcoin expert Charles Edwards, measures the amount of energy pumped into the BTC network at any given time to keep it operational.

The network’s proof-of-work algorithm takes that energy and converts it into monetary power via a complex process involving specialized computers called miners.

Edward’s metric measures that activity and converts it into a technical indicator based on fundamentals. According to the analytics tool, BTC investors can look forward to another 350% increase in the price of the coin.

Should the prediction come true, BTC would gain an additional $200K to its current price level, bringing the value per coin to around $260,000. 

Bitcoin Energy Value Oscillator Says Bull Run Is Far From Over | Source TradingView

IOTA rose to its highest levels in over three years as traders anticipated the upcoming overhaul of its Internet-of-Things protocol, scheduled for next month. 

The IOTA CEO, Dominik Schiener, gave details of the imminent makeover in an interview with ZDNet. He explained that the new framework would introduce a distributed ledger that does not require electricity, miners, or even transaction fees.

Mr. Schiener added that the technology dubbed Chrysalis is “going to be production-ready” and billions of users will be able to utilize and benefit from it. 

Besides making the IOTA project more appealing to investors, Chrysalis will also get rid of the coordinator node, a controversial feature in IOTA that denotes the power to approve transactions to just a few nodes.

Following Schiener’s remarks, IOTA’s price exploded as market speculators pushed their bids for the token higher. The project’s native token is now up over 450% since the start of        IOTA/USD Chart by TradingView

Moonstake will support the staking of Orb’s official token on Moonstake Wallet.

Moonstake has signed a memorandum of understanding with Orbs, a hybrid blockchain infrastructure with enterprise-grade scale, security, and support.

Through this collaboration, Moonstake will soon support the staking of ORBS, Orbs' official token, on Moonstake Wallet, as well as participate further in the Orbs blockchain ecosystem.

The parties will also host community building programs, research, training, events, and conferences with the goal to increase awareness and adoption of blockchain and distributed ledger technology in the banking and finance industry.

Moonstake started in the staking business last year with the aim to create the largest staking network in Asia. Since then, Moonstake has developed the most user-friendly wallets for both web wallet and mobile wallet (iOS/Android) that are compatible with over 2000 cryptocurrencies. After a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, Moonstake's total staking assets have grown rapidly to reach around $1.076b (US$800m) in staked assets in six months.

Meanwhile, Orbs is a prominent hybrid network with a focus on converting businesses to blockchain. The company has partnered with industry leaders from both traditional and decentralised technology sectors, such as IBM and Consensys respectively, to bring blockchain to the field of telecommunications.

"We are very pleased to be a partner with Orbs, the biggest blockchain company in Israel. Moonstake provides easy access for staking globally. Together, we can accelerate global awareness and adoption of blockchain technology for both users and businesses," said Mitsuru Tezuka, founder of Moonstake.  

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After a steady rise, the total amount of the world’s largest stablecoin Tether [USDT] in circulation has soared all the way to $40 billion. With this, the token climbed back to the fourth spot on the cryptocurrency leaderboard.

Exactly a year ago, Tether’s dollar-linked stablecoin, USDT’s market cap stood at around $4 billion. Since then, the stablecoin saw an astonishing growth of 900% in only one year.

Historically, Tether has often inclined positively from US Dollars value. Hence, it is no surprise that the latest figures came right after the demand for cryptocurrency surged following hints of a long-anticipated recovery.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin has regained some of the lost momentum as it climbed to the $57,000 level on Wednesday. This came after the manufacturing giant, Tesla chief Elon Musk announced that people can now start purchasing the firm’s electric vehicles using Bitcoin.

According to the exec, Tesla is using internal and open-source software and operates bitcoin nodes directly. He went on to add that Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin and will not be converted to fiat currency.

Soon after this, the crypto-asset noted a minor uptick of 3% over the 24-hours.

Over the years, USDT has become an important form of liquidity in the crypto industry that is transferred between different exchange platforms and wallet addresses to buy Bitcoin and other digital assets.

The demand for USDT in the e-commerce and payments realm cannot be ignored. This has been on the rise for quite some time now. The main factor that driven the demand was the fact that the token essentially enabled relevant users to fend off volatility.

In addition, online retailers and payment gateways have also leveraged not just efficiency related to time but also cost of transactions which have been way cheaper as opposed to credit cards and traditional payment mechanisms.

Yet another milestone that played a crucial role in bolstering its USDT’s demand this bull season is the rising interest in decentralized finance [DeFi] as well as the over-trade counters [OTC] desks that leverage the token to process block trades.

In fact, the whole stablecoin market is seeing rapid surges in terms of valuation especially in tandem with Bitcoin’s price action.

Other stablecoins have also noted a considerable increase in terms of market cap. Circle’s USD Coin [USDC] is the second-largest stablecoin which recently surpassed $10 billion in valuation. It is now the 12th-largest crypto-asset by market cap behind DeFi token Chainlink and Litecoin.

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.

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Dave Kaval, president of Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics, says the ball club will be HODLing any Bitcoin that fans pay for luxury seats at the team ballpark in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

In an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, Kaval said no baseball fans had yet taken advantage of the opportunity to buy a full season, six-person suite for the home season for 1 Bitcoin (BTC) since the deal was first announced on March 15. Though the A’s club president said he was still hopeful “two or three” people will buy tickets for the ten suites available, he also clarified that any crypto received from purchases wouldn’t be converted into fiat right away.

“We’re gonna hold it,” said Kaval. “We’re believers in [Bitcoin] and hopefully it continues to go up and maybe we can find some big free agents with some of the proceeds.”

The BTC price dipped to $51,000 since the initial sales announcement, meaning crypto users who purchased the suite at just the right time could have saved more than $13,000 compared to the regular full season fiat price of $64,800. The price of the crypto asset has since returned to more than $57,000.

Kaval said part of the reason for the change to selling the tickets in crypto was the baseball club offering “something unique and different.” Though he said the A’s would not be accepting other tokens like Ether (ETH) or Dogecoin (DOGE) this week, there is the possibility of doing so in the future.

“We’re focused on just Bitcoin for now, but I think if it catches on, and we get interest, we are open.”

Bitcoin sales for the suites will still be accepted before April 1, when the Oakland A’s first game is scheduled against the Houston Astros. Though the status of the game may still be subject to change depending on COVID-19 cases in the state, at the time of publication, roughly 9,400 baseball fans are expected to be allowed at the A’s RingCentral Coliseum on Thursday — less than 20% of the 63,132 people when the venue is at full capacity.

Many Major League Baseball players have also become involved in the non-fungible token market. Last month, former MLB player-turned artist Micah Johnson sold $1 million worth of tokenized art in just one minute on Nifty Gateway.

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US crypto trade Coinbase stated it could checklist three altcoins, Curve, Ankr, and Storj, yesterday in a transfer that despatched the trio’s costs surging skyward. The trade seldom provides new cryptocurrencies to its checklist of choices and is understood for its strict compliance and regulatory stance.

“ANKR, CRV & STORJ are actually dwell on Coinbase.com and within the Coinbase iOS and Android apps. Coinbase clients can log in now to purchase, promote, convert, ship, obtain or retailer ANKR, CRV & STORJ,” it stated in a tweet.

— Coinbase (@coinbase) March 25, 2021

The three listings are vastly totally different by way of their features, goal market, and total use instances. As such, the Curve DAO token (CRV) launched in 2020, Ankr (ANKR) launched in 2018, and Storj launched in 2017 (it raised $30 million in an ICO).

Ankr makes accessing the ‘Net 3.0’ less complicated, providing distributed, multi-cloud blockchain infrastructure for one-click node deployment and administration. As an infrastructure platform and market, the undertaking goals to permit customers a simple method to blockchain networks and DeFi functions.

Deploying blockchain nodes is hard for brand spanking new customers or customers who don’t code, and there’s the place the Ankr node market is available in. It permits customers to deploy blockchain nodes by way of a one-click API resolution for public blockchains and DeFi protocols.

ANKR , its token, helps to facilitate funds on the platform and meter a community of worldwide distributed sources together with serving as an incentive for node suppliers.

Get able to discover the cross-chain staking with us!

Learn all about it: https://t.co/vzJjrHfuCV#StakeFi #Ankr #DeFi https://t.co/jZo0AY0oas pic.twitter.com/4kt2y3Sm6V

— Ankr (@ankr) March 19, 2021

Storj, pronounced as “storage,” is an open-source cloud storage platform that makes use of a decentralized community of nodes to host person knowledge. Anybody and everybody can promote their additional arduous drive area to different customers by way of the protocol.

The undertaking is owned and developed by Storj Labs Inc, which was based in 2014. The agency pre-mined its total provide of tokens at inception, that means no new tokens might be created by way of STORJ mining.

— Storj Labs (@storjproject) March 1, 2021

Curve is a decentralized trade that enables customers to swap stablecoins and different property with the similar worth . That is to assist customers simply change between ‘wrapped’ tokens (or ‘staked’ property) to permit for a seamless DeFi expertise.

CRV is a governance token that has carried out a time-based staking system. CRV holders can vest their tokens for ‘veCRV’—the protocol’s inner token that enables customers to assert money flows and participate in governance selections.

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DeFi project TurtleDex is believed to have performed a rugpull, withdrawing 9,000 BNB from the liquidity pool raised in a pre-sale five days ago, an equivalent of $2.4 million.

The funds have been converted into ETH and sent to several wallets hosted by Binance.

It has been reported that the founders of TurtleDex, a project built on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), have run off after taking the liquidity pool of the DeFi project along with them.

On March 15, TurtleDex raised 9,000 BNB for their liquidity pool, promising high yields to eager crypto investors and yield farmers, using TTDX tokens.

Twitter user DeFi Stalker has spread the word about that, saing that the liquidity pool of Turtle placed on ApeSwap and PancakeSwap has been siphoned.

The funds were exchanged into ETH and sent to nine wallets on Binance.

He added that the project’s website is offline and the Telegram channel is not active.

The aforementioned crypto journalist Colin Wu tweeted that the community asks Binance to freeze those wallets. Curiously, that when some community members asked the TurtleDex team if turtles can rugpull, they replied “no, because the hands are too short”.

Earlier this year, at the end of January, another BSC-based DeFi project, PopcornSwap, also conducted a rugpull, stealing a $2,000,000 worth of their users crypto from the liquidity pool.

The term is applied to an exit-scam conducted by DeFi project teams when they siphon crypto from the liquidity pools in which stakers and yield-farmers put their crypto.

The term describes a situation when someone pulls a rug from under another person’s feet, making them fall over. The “pull” here is a word play on “liquidity pool”.