Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has tipped 62% of Dogecoin (DOGE) investors into profit, amid speculation that Musk’s Twitter-buy will be positive for the meme token. DOGE’s price rallied on Oct. 26 when billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk changed his Twitter bio to “Chief of Twit” — the same day he visited Twitter’s San Francisco-based headquarters before officially closing the deal as the new owner on Oct. 28. In the past seven days, DOGE’s price has surged 93.3% to $0.116 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko. This means that as much as 62% of DOGE …

Not everyone is convinced that Mark Zuckerberg’s massive metaverse experiment is a good idea. Since Facebook rebranded to Meta in 2021, the social media giant’s focus has increasingly shifted to connecting the digital and physical worlds through augmented reality. However, a shareholder of the company recently issued a letter to the CEO calling the metaverse investment “super-sized and terrifying.” It didn’t take long for those concerns to be justified. Meta published its third-quarter financial results after the bell on Oct. 26 and, perhaps unsurprisingly, its metaverse division underperformed. Meta’s Reality Labs lost a whopping $3.672 billion during the quarter, mirroring …

The global Bitcoin (BTC) payments market will reach $3.7 billion by 2031, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.3% from 2022 to 2031, with private keys and hardware driving the sector expansion, forecasted Allied Market Research in a report published on Oct. 24. According to the document, operational demand for efficiency and transparency in payments systems, along with data security services growth and a surge in demand for remittances in emerging economies, are among the major factors supporting growth in the sector in the coming years. The report also stated: "Furthermore, increase in demand for bitcoin among banks, …

Following a successful pilot phase, digital asset custody platform Fireblocks has launched its new payment engine for merchants, opening up pathways for businesses to settle and accept cryptocurrency transactions across jurisdictions. Fireblocks’ new Payments Engine is said to provide “turnkey solutions” for businesses that want to integrate digital assets into their operations, the company announced Monday. The platform allows payment service providers to incorporate new crypto payment rails and accept, settle and process digital asset transactions instantly. The platform also supports cross-border internal settlement, micropayments and merchant adoption with lower processing fees. Ran Goldi, Fireblocks' vice president of payments, told …

Walmart’s global chief technology officer (CTO) Suresh Kumar has tipped cryptocurrency to become a "major" area of disruption, particularly in how customers pay for virtual and physical goods in the future. Speaking at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit on Oct. 17, Kumar outlined Walmart’s positive stance on digital assets, noting that “crypto will become an important part of how customers transact” for both physical and virtual goods. “I think that there are three major areas of disruption. Crypto falls in sort of the middle of it,” he said, explaining that “the way in which customers are getting inspired and …

Mastercard officially announced on Oct. 17 a new program to enable financial institutions to bring crypto trading capabilities and services to their customers. Called “Crypto Source,” the program is designed to allow users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies, complemented by Mastercard’s proprietary Crypto Secure solution for additional security and compliance. The tool is launched in cooperation with Mastercard’s existing partner Paxos Trust Company and is reportedly expected to launch in Q4 2022. Paxos is known for providing similar services to global payment giant PayPal, which launched its first crypto services in late 2020. Within the new partnership, Paxos will …

Mexico is the second-largest recipient of remittances in the world, according to 2021 World Bank statistics. Remittances to the nation jumped to a record $5.3 billion in July, which is a 16.5% increase year-over-year compared to the same period last year. The steady growth presents myriad opportunities for fintech companies. Not surprisingly, droves of crypto companies are setting up shop in Mexico to claim a share of the burgeoning remittance market. Over the past year alone, about half a dozen crypto giants, including Coinbase, have set up operations in the country. In February, Coinbase unveiled a crypto transfer service tailored …

As crypto traders debate whether Bitcoin (BTC) is going to $25,000 or $15,000 first, the world’s largest financial institutions are laying the groundwork for mass adoption. The proverbial floodgates are unlikely to open before the United States provides a clear regulatory framework for crypto, but regulators and industry insiders are confident that guidance could come in 2023 at the earliest. In the meantime, megabanks like BNY Mellon, whose roots date back to 1784, are entering the space. This week’s Crypto Biz chronicles BNY Mellon’s foray into digital assets, JPMorgan’s ongoing experimentation with blockchain technology and Crypto.com’s new European headquarters. BNY …

In the ongoing quest for mainstream adoption, a big challenge surrounds making crypto easy to use. Transacting in digital assets can be clunky at times — putting off consumers and businesses alike. Here, we speak to Oliver Marco La Rosa — the founder and CEO of Globiance — to find out what his company is doing to tear down the barriers to entry. 1. Hello! Tell us about Globiance. We started Globiance to address a major issue: Crypto and legacy banking systems fail to operate synergistically. Right now, investors have no choice but to log into different platforms to manage …

Traditional finance and payment giants JPMorgan and Visa are teaming up to streamline the use of their private blockchain solutions Liink and B2B Connect to facilitate cross-border payments. According to an Oct. 11 report from Forbes, JPMorgan’s Liink is a network specifically designed for cross-border transfers and is offered under the bank’s blockchain and payments initiative Onyx. Onyx provides a platform for institutions to share financial information and validate transactions. Visa’s B2B Connect is a similar network to Liink that was built for institutional grade use and has now been integrated with Onxy’s Confirm. Confirm is an account-information validation product, …

For years, mass adoption has been pitched as the endgame of crypto. We’re supposed to envision a world where we can pay for our morning coffee with stablecoins and put mortgages on-chain to be used as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi). In a world in which crypto has become mainstream, prices would likely reach all-time highs, but at what cost? Concessions inevitably would be made to meet consumer expectations to realize this future. Though the proliferation of online banking may seem like it set the stage for a seamless transition to DeFi, traditional finance (TradFi) customers are accustomed to a …

In another round of investments in the crypto space, Singapore-based crypto bank MinePlex has secured $100 million from digital asset investment firm GEM Digital Limited (GEM), aimed at closing the gap between digital assets and traditional banking. According to an Oct. 11 announcement, MinePlex will use the funding to develop new banking technologies, including a collaboration with Mastercard and Visa for transactions accepting Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and TRON (TRX). Bringing digital assets and traditional banking services together is MinePlex's big bet. The platform offers fiat and crypto assets services within the same application, enabling transactions such as …