Cryptocurrency investment fund Galaxy Digital and over-the-counter (OTC) trading firm XBTO announced they have managed to organize the first block trade ever of Bakkt’s Bitcoin futures contract.In the announcement, Bakkt’s parent company, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), said the deal is done but hasn’t disclosed any further details (as price or size). Trabue Bland, President of ICE Futures U.S said that since it launched last week, the Bakkt Bitcoin Futures has achieved several milestones,...
Read More »PayPal Absent From Libra Association Meeting, Might Abandon Facebook’s Project Entirely
Apart from its ongoing antitrust investigation as put forward by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Facebook is also having a rough time regarding its proposed digital currency, the Libra. A few months ago, Facebook announced its plans to float its own cryptocurrency and also released a whitepaper to the effect.As part of the announcement, a Libra Association was announced, an association made up of several big companies including Uber, Mastercard, Visa, eBay, Spotify and many other...
Read More »Snapchat (SNAP) Stock Sinks As Facebook Releases New Copycat App
On Thursday, after Facebook announced its new Threads app, Snap Inc. (SNAP) stock fell up to 7%. Facebook’s latest attempt to clone features already being used by Snapchat is only one of many, which has since pitched both social media giants together in the public eye.Even though Threads is a stand-alone app, it allows users already on Instagram to exchange status updates and media including photos and videos, to specific people who make up their “close friends”, an Instagram feature which...
Read More »Apple’s Tim Cook Says the Company Has No Plans to Launch a Cryptocurrency
Although Apple is making an aggressive move in the fintech and global payments industry, the tech giant has no plans to step in the crypto space for now. Apple Inc’s chief executive officer Tim Cook recently said that his company has no plans to launch its own digital currency.During an interview with French financial newspaper Les Echos, Cook said that matters related to currency should remain in the hands of countries and their respective governments. He added:“I really think that a...
Read More »Taboola and Outbrain to Merge Into a $2 Billion Company
Photo: Taboola / TwitterAdvertising company Taboola and its competitor, web advertising platform Outbrain announced they are merging, forming one company. Even though this is a mutual company, it will nevertheless be called Taboola, and Taboola’s founder Adam Singolda will act as its CEO.Taboola is said to pay Outbrain investors $250 million in cash plus a 30% share of the combined companies.The main goal is to widen its customer list that should now have more than 20.000 online properties...
Read More »U.S. Congressmen Want the Federal Reserve to Consider a Digital Dollar
Even as the U.S. Congress bites down hard on Facebook and the social media giant’s grand plans of issuing its own digital currency, a recent event has corroborated the general idea that the problem with the Libra might not be the fact that it’s a digital currency itself, but that it’s being issued by Facebook. This is because, two Rep members have revealed concerns about the inevitability of digital currencies in the near future, suggesting that the United States should start getting used to...
Read More »Unfazed by All the Negativity, Facebook’s Libra Publishes Roadmap for Mainnet Launch
There has been a lot of negativity surrounding the launch of Facebook Libra over the last few months. Global regulators and banking institutions have showered severe criticism over the project. However, despite several kickbacks, the Libra Association is proceeding ahead with its plans of mainnet launch.Recently, the Libra Association has published a new roadmap that highlights 4 major milestones to be attained before the launch of the Libra network. The Calibra team says that the first...
Read More »Ripple’s Xpring Is Now Open Developer Platform
To make sure that Ripple‘s XRP begins to function on a broad basis, Ripple Labs has introduced the Xpring platform in order to enable third parties to be able to use XRP’s Mainnet for different kinds of applications like never before. One year after Ripple announced the existence of the platform, the XRP development team decided to enable just about anyone to be able to create smart applications that use XRP as the main token of execution of transactions.Ripple indicated this in a tweet that...
Read More »Microsoft’s Surface Event Shows New Range of Impressive Hardware Devices
Microsoft Surface event started on a big note with the tech giant unveiling some impressive line of hardware. The most eye-grabbing announcements were the company’s new foldable smartphone Surface Duo running on Android and the Surface Earbuds running on Android.Company CEO Satya Nadella kickstarted the event while Surface chief Panos Panay took the wraps off from the new Surface offerings. Well, let’s take a look at some of the most-important devices unveiled at the Surface event. So without...
Read More »Visa, Mastercard and Other Major Libra Backers Want to Pull Out from the Deal
Since its launch on June 18, 2019, Facebook’s Libra project has encountered mixed reactions. Now, four payment companies that had joined the social media giant as founding members of the Libra Association are hesitant. They have developed cold foot over whether to formally sign on to the crypto project. The issue was explained by people familiar with the matter.According to a new Bloomberg report, MasterCard, Visa, Stripe, and PayPal are allegedly stalling at officially joining the...
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