Mastercard partners Paxos to help bring crypto trading to banks: report

Mastercard (NYSE: MA), one of the world’s leading payment providers, is looking to bring crypto trading to more users via a program set to enable the participation of banks, a new report says.

The latest crypto news report has revealed that the payments giant will partner with crypto trading platform Paxos in a deal that will see financial institutions like banks offer cryptocurrency trading to their clients.

According to a CNBC report published Monday, Mastercard will make this possible by acting as “bridge” between banks and Paxos.

On top of that, the company will manage the compliance and security aspects of the service, the two factors being top regulatory concerns allegedly keeping banks and their clients off the crypto trading market.

Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s chief digital officer, told CNBC that latest polls indicate demand for the crypto asset class is high, despite the recent bear market mauling.  The banker noted that almost 60% of people want to get into the sector, but would prefer doing so via their banking providers.

Noting that crypto is indeed still “a little scary for some people,” Lambert added:

“There’s a lot of consumers out there that are really interested in this, and intrigued by crypto, but would feel a lot more confident if those services were offered by their financial institutions.”

The partnership with Paxos comes just days after Mastercard debuted its risk assessment tool Crypto Secure, which as Invezz reported, aims at helping    banks and other issuers protect against potential fraud schemes on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Mastercard is offering the fraud protection tool via its recently acquired blockchain security platform CipherTrace.

In October 2021, we also covered Mastercard’s partnership with crypto custody firm Bakkt, a collaboration that was also aimed at making it easy for banks to enter the crypto trading space.

The latest move cements these steps, with Mastercard looking to offer not just compliance on aspects like anti-money laundering, but also help verify transactions, the CNBC report noted.

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VIDEO: Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino, “dollar stablecoins can help the developing world”

I love Bitcoin. Having said that, its volatility is extreme and prevents it being anything remotely close to a store of value – for now, at least.

I spoke with the CTO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, on the latest episode of the Invezz podcast. In a world where multiple countries’ currencies are spiralling dangerously out of control, it is perhaps more topical than ever to assess the merits of holding dollars.

And dollars on the blockchain – what we now call stablecoins – could be the most accessible format. A quick look at the below table, which shows the most recent inflation readings of nearly every country, shows quite how dire the situation is for a lot of nations around the world.

This is something I noticed when I travelled to El Salvador to see the Bitcoin experiment up close this summer. Many merchants chose to set up their wallets so that the Bitcoin they received from transactions was automatically converted to USD.  

In such a way, the transactions were completed in Bitcoin yet the merchant did not have to speculate on its volatility, instead holding stablecoins. Paolo and I discuss this, and the growing influence that Tether and stablecoins could have in the world.

We also compared Lugano, the city of Switzerland where Tether is de facto legal tender (as well as Bitcoin) to El Salvador – two countries that could not be more different economically, both of whom are engaging in their own crypto experiments.

As I type this, close to 100 countries are living with inflation in the double digits. While the US dollar is also inflating at a rapid pace, it is absolutely crushing other currencies – something I analysed earlier this week. The below chart says it all.

We have seen this time and time again in previous periods of uncertainty. As far as fiat currencies go, the dollar rules them all. Paolo and I also talked about this dominance.

Many outsiders look into what has happened this year in crypto and write it all off as a fad. Paolo talks about the difference between centralised stablecoins like Tether and the house of card alternatives – such as Terra, which Paolo was very critical of even before the death spiral in May.

One poignant point Paolo made was the redemptions of Tether as the contagion was flowing across markets. Over $7 billion was redeemed out of Tether in a 48 hours space, close to 10% of the supply. The redemptions were smooth and transpired exactly how they were always meant to. Paolo made the point that a lot of banks would not even be able to redeem that amount of reserves so quickly.

Are Tether, Bitcoin and the “reputable” crypto projects now stronger for coming through this stress test unscathed?

We also touch on regulation, a subject unavoidable when chatting about stablecoins. The continued growth of the crypto ecosystem at large means it is an industry that regulators are now paying more and more attention to.

I also put a question to Paolo about Vitalik’s recent comments, when the Ethereum founder said that Tether and other big stablecoins have such great influence that they could even decide the direction of future forks of Ethereum.

That is just a flavour really. As you can imagine given only Bitcoin and Ethereum are bigger than Tether, there is a million and one things to chat about.

As always, feel free to reach out with comments.

Continue the conversation on Twitter with @InvezzPortal, @DanniiAshmore and @Tether_to Or visit https://tether.to/ for more information.  

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Cryptocurrencies under $1 to help you diversify on a budget

TRON TRX/USD, Cronos CRO/USD, and Algorand ALGO/USD are some of the best cryptocurrencies that you can get for under $1.

USDD, the stablecoin that runs on top of the Tron blockchain, was officially listed on Bitkan on June 28, 2022. 

Crypto.com added new leveraged trading pairs for margin trading on June 29, 2022, including GAL/USDT, UNFI/USDT, GLMR/USDT, AUDIO/USDT, RSR/USDT, and SPELL/USDT. 

The Algorand Foundation also announced the Community All-hands event, which features several rising stars projects from the AlgoNFT ecosystem, such as the Tiger Chi Club. 

On June 29, 2022, TRON (TRX) had a value of $0.06588.

The all-time high for TRON (TRX )was on June 5, 2018, at $0.231673.

When we look at its performance in May, TRON (TRX) had its lowest point of value on May 1 at $0.06255. However, its highest point of value was on May 8 at $0.08931.

Here we can see an increase in value by $0.02676 or by 42%.

With this in mind, we can expect TRX to reach $0.1 by the end of July 2022, making it a solid cryptocurrency to buy.

On June 29, 2022, Cronos (CRO) had a value of $0.1188.

Going over its all-time high, Cronos (CRO), Cronos reached its ATH on November 24, 2021, at a value of $0.965407.

When we look at how the cryptocurrency performed last month, Cronos (CRO) had its highest point of value on May 1 at $0.3564. Its lowest point was on May 27 at $0.1661.

Here, we can see that the cryptocurrency decreased in value by $0.1903 or 53%.

However, at $0.1188, CRO is a solid buy as the cryptocurrency can climb to $0.3 by the end of July 2022.

On June 29, 2022, Algorand (ALGO) had a value of $0.3087.

Looking at the cryptocurrency’s all-time high, Algorand (ALGO) reached the highest point of value on June 20, 2019, at $3.56.

Taking a look at the token’s performance throughout the previous month, Algorand (ALGO) had its highest point of value on May 8 at $0.7792.

When we look at its lowest point of value, it was on May 29 at $0.3549. This marked a decrease of $0.4243 or 54%.

Algorand is still one of the most prominent projects within the crypto space, and as such, the ALGO cryptocurrency can reach a value of $0.5 by the end of July, making it a solid buy.

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Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 21 Helps Users

The below is a direct excerpt of Marty’s Bent Issue #1181: “BIP21 is a no brainer.“ Sign up for the newsletter here. At the moment there is a massive UX hurdle that exists for users of different bitcoin wallet software providers. Source Source Source One of the more illuminating talks at the Bitcoin Takeover event […]

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