Bitcoin (BTC) did more than hit $60,000 per coin last week — it also became worth more than the world’s three biggest banks combined. According to publicly available data, the largest cryptocurrency surpassed the three highest-valued global banking giants by market capItalization. Bitcoin market cap blasts past financial stalwarts At its all-time highs of $61,700, Bitcoin’s market cap was roughly $1.15 trillion. The combined market cap of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is $1.08 trillion. The achievements do not stop there: Visa and Mastercard, the biggest payment networks, have a combined market …

As big-name payment processors like Visa and Mastercard increasingly integrate blockchain technology into their payment rails, decentralized platforms offering the best solutions to issues like scalability and fast transaction times are gaining traction. COTI is one such platform that has been gaining momentum in recent weeks after a series of network upgrades and big announcements brought extra attention to the enterprise-grade fintech platform. According to COTI’s website, the protocol focuses on empowering organizations to create their own payment solutions and digitize any form of currency as a way to save time and money. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows …

Credit card providers charge merchants a cut of the payments they accept, called interchange fees or swipe fees. With two major card providers aiming to elevate rates, could crypto become an alternative? “Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are planning to raise swipe fees for some types of credit-card purchases in April,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, adding: “Though invisible to consumers, they [interchange fees] are glaring to merchants, which often end up paying fees of about 2% of their customers’ credit-card purchases. The fees are set by the card networks, such as Visa and Mastercard. Merchants pay them …

Non-collateralized borrowing and larger loans could start to be offered by the DeFi sector if decentralized digital identities are rolled out, a blockchain project says. Metaverse claims digital identities are an essential piece of infrastructure that’s currently missing from this thriving industry — despite the fact that they would allow protocols to offer personalized services, and achieve regulatory compliance. Digital identities normally consist of data including an online user’s search history, social media activity, usernames, national ID number, date of birth, and current location. The team behind Metaverse claims that this information can be put to good use without compromising …

A digital payment provider is bringing crypto payments to retailers and consumers through a suite of products — including a sleek, modern physical terminal. Lunu’s point-of-sale device comes in an array of skins and can process a plethora of cryptocurrencies as well as credit cards and contactless payments made using smartphones. Executives have positioned their company as an aspirational 21st-century brand that has art and social responsibility in its DNA — with a laser-like focus on design. The terminal is complemented by a cutting-edge processing service that delivers decentralized and competitive exchange rates — through its patented arbitrage system and …

On Feb. 10, Mastercard announced that it would start supporting a select few cryptocurrencies on its payment network. According to the payments giant, the inclusion of cryptocurrencies will allow customers to “save, store and send money in new ways” while opening up new opportunities for merchants as well. The announcement followed a presentation on Jan. 30 in which Visa reaffirmed its plans to continue to push for cryptocurrency payments and on-ramps, showing that the company has long-term plans for the sector. With both credit card giants on board, it’s safe to say that Bitcoin (BTC) is no longer just an …

Mastercard has announced plans to support cryptocurrencies in 2021, paving the way for its nearly one billion users to spend digital assets at more than 30 million merchants. The firm believes this may open merchants up to new customers and build loyalty with existing customers who are already migrating to digital assets over traditional fiat options. “It’s about choice. Mastercard isn’t here to recommend you start using cryptocurrencies. But we are here to enable customers, merchants and businesses to move digital value” While the global payments giant noted it is planning to support stablecoins due to their “reliability and security,” …

Visa has teamed up with a neobank to pilot a crypto program that will allow underbanked individuals to purchase, custody, and trade digital assets. In an announcement today, customers at First Boulevard, a neobank “built for Black America,” will soon be able use Visa’s application programming interfaces, or APIs, to access the benefits of trading and custodying crypto. Visa said the partnership was part of its efforts to give people using financial institutions without the infrastructure for digital assets the means to tap into crypto and blockchain. “With this pilot program, we want to extend the value of Visa to …

During the Visa Q1 earnings call on Thursday, chairman and CEO Al Kelly devoted a portion of his comments to reaffirming the financial giant’s commitment to crypto payments and onramps, as well as explaining “how Visa thinks about crypto in general and our approach.” The financial services firm with over $72 billion in assets as of 2019 has been aggressively pursing crypto payments as of late, including by way of partnerships enabling crypto debit cards, and investing Zap, a crypto payments startup. Additionally, earlier this month Visa was forced to abandon a $5.3 billion acquisition of payments platform Plaid on …

The United States Department of Justice saw a victory in a major fintech acquisition case that could set the stage for a host of antitrust enforcements. On Tuesday, the DoJ announced that Visa and Plaid had called it quits on their planned merger. Originally announced almost exactly a year ago, Visa was planning to pay $5.3 billion for the upstart tech firm. Plaid's ubiquitous software is designed to connect disparate systems of financial data securely. In its November 2020 complaint, the DoJ alleged that Visa was using the acquisition to snuff out competition. Today, Makan Delrahim, of the DoJ's antitrust …

Zap, a Lightning Network payments startup backed by Visa through its Fintech Fast Track program, announced on Wednesday the rollout of Strike Global, a payments and remittances app using the Bitcoin layer-two technology. An announcement by CEO Jack Mallers goes in-depth into the differences between standard fiat transfer mechanisms and the Lightning-powered mechanism in Strike Global. Mallers focused on remittances, a multibillion-dollar business that is still largely passed through expensive middlemen. Strike Global is not too unlike traditional fintech apps, but it uses the Lightning Network for settlement. This means that payments can be essentially instantaneous and at a fraction …

Over 200 Simplex partner companies can now offer crypto debit cards to their customers, potentially enabling greater adoption of cryptocurrencies for retail transactions. The development is the result of a recent partnership between Simplex and Visa announced Monday. Simplex, a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp service is now a principal member of Visa in Europe. A Simplex spokesperson explained to Cointelegraph that the partnership is mainly a boost for the company’s business-to-business activities. “The principal membership is what enables us to roll this out to our partner network, basically giving any Simplex partner the ability to offer a crypto or fiat Visa card.” …