Tag Archives: AA News

Ramping up its CBDC game, Ripple announced the launch of a new platform for central banks, governments, and financial institutions to issue their own central bank digital currency. Dubbed ‘Ripple CBDC Platform,’ the offering will leverage the same blockchain technology used on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The platform is developed to address multiple use cases, such as wholesale and retail CBDCs on a private ledger or issuing a stablecoin. Ripple CBDC Platform According to the San...

Strike – a Bitcoin payments company and remittance app – announced Friday that it is now available for download to over 3 billion people worldwide, including dozens of new countries. The international expansion will allow wallet users in India, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and other countries to remit payments to one another in both USD and BTC.  Targeting the Global South Speaking at Bitcoin 2023 in Miami, Strike CEO Jack Mallers explained that the company’s expansion efforts...

As Hong Kong takes center stage in the regional crypto business, local firms are trying to expand their customer base. One such firm, HashKey Group, is reportedly raising up to $200 million in funding to tap new opportunities. HashKey Eyes $200 Million in Funding Targeting a more significant share of the Asian crypto market, Hong Kong-based crypto financial service provider HashKey Group plans to expand its operations. The crypto investment fund is reportedly in early-stage...

Bitcoin-friendly Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis doesn’t think the Biden Administration’s proposed 30% excise tax on Bitcoin miners isn’t likely to make it through the House.  On stage at Bitcoin Miami 2023, the politician remained supportive of miners, and believes the industry’s proliferation throughout the United States is a matter of national security.  Mining: Dirty or Clean? During the interview, Lummis spoke about the excise tax with Perianne Boring, a member of the...

The ordinals are coming in dank this week. Bitcoin Frogs was the #1 selling NFT collection for the 24-hour period on Wednesday. Frogs sales outpaced Bored Apes Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, and other popular collections for the day. The BRC-20 memecoin project describes itself as “10,000 unique frog collectibles minted directly on the Bitcoin Blockchain.” As of publication time, 3,700 frogs had owners. Meanwhile, hundreds were listed for sale on NFT marketplaces. That gecko that...

Global payments giant Visa has deployed experimental smart contracts on Ethereum’s Goerli testnet to pilot gasless transactions through account abstraction. The two sets of smart contracts, dubbed Paymaster, will simplify user interaction with the Ethereum network by performing complex tasks and managing transaction costs on behalf of other accounts. Visa Tests Paymaster for Frictionless Transactions Account abstraction is a proposal to increase flexibility in the management...

Ether holders are rushing to stake their tokens with network validators. This has pushed the deposit activity to the highest level since the Shapella upgrade last month. In fact, the total volume of crypto-asset staked has exceeded 20 million. The latest milestone comes a month after the much-anticipated Ethereum Shanghai upgrade that brought a record-breaking weekly inflow of Ether deposits for staking. “It has only been a month since Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrade. Since then,...

Developers of decentralized exchange (DEX) Swaprum have drained $3 million in ether (ETH) tokens from the protocol in an apparent rugpull, otherwise known as an exit scam. The exchange, launched on the Ethereum layer-2 network Arbitrum, offers high farming rewards, low swapping fees, and potential earnings of up to 100% annual percentage yield (APY). Swaprum Rugpulls Users for $3M Blockchain security firm Peckshield flagged the incident on Friday, disclosing that...

A topic as old as time, if time was a few years old – will Ethereum flip Bitcoin in terms of total market cap? Will ETH overtake BTC? This has been the “to be or not to be” in the cryptocurrency industry, and it pins communities against each other like no other. It’s true that BTC has been the predominant market leader ever since it has been created, but a few years ago, who would have thought that another cryptocurrency would have a market cap worth over 40% of Bitcoin’s?...

Ripple announced the acquisition of Swiss-based crypto custody provider Metaco, marking the blockchain firm’s expansion across the growing institutional crypto custody market. The deal, worth $250 million, surfaces as Ripple continues to defend against the long-drawn lawsuit from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Ripple Acquires Metaco Ripple is expected to ramp up its enterprise offerings providing customers the technology to custody, issue, and settle any type of...