There’s no easy way to buy, send or spend cryptocurrency in person — not even for a slice of pizza or a cup of coffee, or so it’s been said. Meanwhile, the number of physical merchant locations that accept crypto payments keeps growing. As of late October 2019, 15,558 business venues worldwide were accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as a method of payment, up 18% from a year earlier, according to Coinmap.org. The crowdsourced heatmap, devised by Satoshi Labs in 2013, draws on input from consumers and merchants. It also offers up some surprises. While Europe remains the hottest continent for in-person …

Visa, EBay, Stripe and Mastercard have all announced that they are dropping out of Facebook’s Libra Association and its associated stablecoin project. Four companies abandon ship On Oct. 11, Bloomberg reported that Ebay, Stripe and Mastercard had decided to drop out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project. Within minutes, Visa said it had also decided not to join the Libra Association, according to The Block. The news comes one week after payment processor PayPal announced its withdrawal from the Libra stablecoin project as regulators continue to scrutinize the project. The companies have expressed respect for Facebook’s vision and claim to see …

Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe are reportedly unsure whether they wish to become paid-up participants in Facebook’s Libra digital currency. According to a Bloomberg article on Oct. 2 — citing “people familiar with the matter” — the four payment giants have reservations about the social network’s project. Sources: Facebook “oversold” regulator support The companies formed part of the cohort which originally said they wished to act as nodes for Libra, subject to a fee of $10 million. Libra has since faced a major backlash from regulators worldwide and the four now share concerns their own reputations could suffer. According to …

Online payments processor Stripe has raised another $250 million in a new funding round, which pushes its pre-money valuation to a whopping $35 billion. Total funding in the billions On Sept. 19, Stripe announced the additional funding was sourced from investors including venture capital firms General Catalyst, Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz. Coming from a $9.2 billion valuation in 2016, San Francisco-based Stripe was valued at $22.5 billion after raising $245 million in the beginning of 2019. Overall, the U.S. fintech startup has raised roughly $1.2 billion since its inception. The company, also an official partner of Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra, …

Online payments processor Stripe announced the launch of its lending service Stripe Capital for the internet businesses in the United States. On Sept. 5, Stripe announced the launch in a blog post, noting that — once approved — access to funds is usually granted on the next day. The press release states: “Stripe Capital’s full integration with Stripe means there’s no lengthy application, eligibility is determined quickly, funds hit a user’s Stripe account the next business day, and businesses can repay as they earn. [...] In addition to serving Stripe users directly, Stripe will also extend Stripe Capital to its …

Clinkle Implodes As Employees Quit in Protest Of CEO Lucas Duplan, CEO of payment rewards startup Clinkle, allegedly withheld key information from company employees regarding a possible acquisition from Apple. As a result, several employees have left the startup. TechCrunch reported: “As suspicions of a hidden Apple offer swirled, Duplan fired the company’s CFO and VP of engineering, which is said to have been the last straw for quite a few employees. Duplan has tasked the remaining team with stopping development of Clinkle’s debit card product to pivot the company into a business to business API for payment reward.” Google's …

Stripe has finally opened up Bitcoin payments for all of its users, after more than a year of beta testing. The new service launched today and merchants can add Bitcoin as an option for their customers with one small line of code. Stripe launched a beta program for bitcoin back in May 2014. During that time, merchants accepted bitcoin from more than 60 countries, proving its global capabilities. Stripe added support for Apple Pay and Alipay last year, but neither of those centralized services hold the same global potential as Bitcoin. Stripe will be taking a 0.5 % fee for …