Bitcoin infrastructure provider OpenNode will test a Bitcoin payment processing and payouts solution in the Central Bank of Bahrain’s (CBB) regulatory sandbox, the company announced Sept. 13. This is the latest of several steps the kingdom has taken to join the crypto economy both on its own and as a member of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). OpenNode will provide the first Bitcoin (BTC) infrastructure in Bahrain, although the Gulf island nation has been luring fintech companies to its shores for the past several years as it transitions away from an petroleum-based economy. OpenNode …

In another shift toward widespread crypto adoption in Argentina, citizens from the Mendoza Province can now pay government fees and taxes using cryptocurrencies. In an Aug. 27 statement, the Mendoza Tax Administration (ATM) described the new crypto payment service as fulfilling "the strategic objective of modernization and innovation," giving "taxpayers different means to comply with their tax obligations." The service officially began operation on Aug 24., but at this stage, it will only accept stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) for tax payments. Citizens can pay through the portal on the ATM website using any crypto wallets like Binance, Bybit, and …

Bitcoin (BTC) changed the world as a decentralized and non-governmental form of currency that can facilitate peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions that transcend national borders. But, despite this functionality, Bitcoin’s role as a payment mechanism has been called into question due to its low transaction throughput. The Bitcoin blockchain can handle up to seven transactions per second, which means that network demand has seen the average transaction fee on the network reach an all-time high above $62 during specific periods. In order to address low throughput and high transaction fees, developers made the Lightning Network — a layer-2 scaling solution that allows …

Convenience store and petrol station brand On The Run (OTR) has launched crypto payment support across all 175 of its petrol stations and convenience stores across Victoria, South Australia (SA), and Western Australia (WA) as of Aug. 18. As previously reported, the move is part of a collaboration between OTR, Singapore-based exchange Crypto.com, and DataMesh, a Sydney-based payment systems provider. The exchange has provided its Pay Merchant service as a payment settlement layer, while Datamesh has provided the point of sale terminals. Speaking with Cointelegraph, Crypto.com’s Asia & Pacific General Manager Karl Mohan noted that it only took “eight weeks …

Interlay, a London-based blockchain firm, launched a Bitcoin (BTC)-based cross-chain bridge on Polkadot (DOT). Named interBTC (iBTC), the bridge allows the use of Bitcoin on non-native blockchains for decentralized finance (DeFi), cross-chain transfers and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), among others. interBTC operates as a BTC-backed stablecoin, secured by a decentralized network of overcollateralized vaults, which according to Interlay, resembles MakerDAO’s DAI token, a stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. The iBTC vaults use mixed-asset collateral to insure BTC reserves, making iBTC redeemable 1:1 with BTC over the Bitcoin blockchain. As a preventive measure during unforeseen vault failure, the collateral is programmed to …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has argued that crypto payments will once again “make sense” as transaction costs will soon fall to fractions of a cent due to layer-2 rollups. The Cointelegraph team currently on the ground at Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) quoted Buterin as stating that the final hurdle to getting transactions down to fractions of a cent at scale is blockchain data compression. He pointed to “solid work happening” with roll-ups at the moment such as Optimism’s layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, which has worked to get the size and cost of data in blockchain transactions down by introducing …

Much to the chagrin of cryptocurrency investors across the ecosystem, the bear market has officially set in and brought with it devastating price collapses that have left relatively few unscathed. As the popular topic of conversation now centers on bearish predictions of how low Bitcoin (BTC) will go and how long this iteration of the crypto winter will last, those with more experience on the matter know that it’s virtually impossible to predict the bottom and it would be wise to apply those energies elsewhere. Instead of focusing on the when of the end, perhaps it’s more constructive to explore …

A Bitcoin (BTC) experiment on the Isle of Man involving the Lightning Network, 25 schoolchildren and the promise of a milkshake has yielded interesting results. At Willaston School on the Isle of Man (a British Crown Dependency nestled between the United Kingdom and Ireland), 25 6-year-old students, one teacher and one teaching assistant participated in the light-hearted Bitcoin study. MSW, a data analyst at CoinCorner, told Cointelegraph that he visited the school to discuss job opportunities and to inspire the kids, discussing his own career path, which spans nuclear reactor study, data analytics and now, Bitcoin. Inevitably, the talk delved …

While the market goes steady, the crypto ecosystem continues to grow as merchants innovate and adopt cryptocurrency payments in their quest to gain new customers. Data platform PYMNTS collaborated with Bitpay to survey merchants, in an attempt to understand the trends on what participants expect from digital currencies and their effect on payments and businesses. In the report titled "Paying With Cryptocurrency," the researchers found that among businesses with an annual income of $1 billion, 85% are adopting crypto payments to find and gain new customers. On the other hand, 82% of all the merchants who participated in the survey …

A YouTuber started traveling the world to see whether he could survive solely on Bitcoin (BTC) as a means of payment. In the latest episode of Cointelegraph’s “Crypto Stories” series, Paco from India explained how he started his journey from the city of Bengaluru and learned from the example of travel pioneers who came before him, including Nellie Bly, who circumnavigated the globe in the late 19th century in less than 73 days. Paco worked a variety of jobs before reading up on Bitcoin and made a big decision. “This is 2021,” said Paco. “I will travel the world by …

The last six odd months have seen the cryptocurrency market witness an unparalleled amount of financial volatility, so much so that the total capitalization of this fast-maturing space has dropped from $3 trillion to approximately $1 trillion. This comes after the industry hit all-time highs across the board last November, with Bitcoin (BTC) reaching a price point of $69,000. Despite the previously stated volatility, a recent report shows that small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across nine separate countries, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Russia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and the United States, are extremely open to the idea of …

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has partnered with Splyt, a “super app enabler,” to bring payment options to the Binance application. Payment options made for Splyt services include cryptocurrency. When live, the integration will allow Binance users to pay for ridehailing services, but “also bikesharing, scooters, airport transfers, public transport and even food delivery,” a Splyt spokesperson told Cointelegraph. A spokesperson at Binance told Cointelegraph that they're "excited to see crypto and blockchain taking on more use cases and real-life applications." "Over the past year alone, we’ve observed an increase in retail and institutional interest in crypto and its …