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☕️The Morning Cup: Mastercard pumps brakes on crypto functionalities, Near announces Blockchain Operating System
Good morning, good day, and good evening. Welcome back to The Morning Cup. It’s your weekly recap of the latest in crypto news and your start to the week, no matter where you are. Don’t worry, we’ve selected just what you need to stay up-to-date, so you won’t spend time pouring through the news you don’t need, only the news you care about.
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📈📉 Market Watch!
BTC is trending sideways as market awaits Silvergate outcome
BTC’s price is currently experiencing a relatively flat price trend, even amidst the implosion of crypto bank Silvergate Capital, which has recently delayed its Q2 report, suspended its crypto payments network, and cast doubt on its own viability. BTC is priced at $22,475.67 at the time of writing. The top gainers for the last 24 hours on Poloniex are LOGT/USDT, CRV/USDT, FTT/USDT, AVAX/USDT, and ETHW/USDT.
🗞️ So, what happened?
Payment giants’ crypto plans on hold amidst crypto winter
Payment industry leaders Visa and Mastercard have halted their respective development of crypto payments capabilities due to the shifting tides in the industry. Since the implosions of prominent players such as FTX, BlockFi and Celsius, many legacy companies that were looking at incorporating blockchain tech are exercising a higher amount of caution. This latest development comes as regulatory bodies in the US are increasing their scrutiny.
However, it seems that Mastercard’s existing collaborations are still a-go, as just recently crypto exchange Bybit announced plans to launch a debit card on the Mastercard network that allows users to use their crypto balances in order to make fiat-based transactions. This is done by converting to fiat and debiting the crypto on a user’s card.
It should be noted that, even amidst the expression of uncertainty of card companies towards cryptocurrency, spokespeople for Mastercard have said that the company will still be looking into the underlying blockchain technology and its use cases alongside Mastercard’s current systems. In fact, in the next story we’re covering this week, Mastercard is participating in a pilot program for an Australian CBDC.
For Visa’s part, the way forward may be a little more murky for the time being, as the company had to cut ties with now the bankrupt FTX a mere month after announcing their expanded partnership. Other companies like American Express have not designated crypto as a priority, with yet more traditional finance entities waiting for regulatory framework to be more defined before moving forward.
Australia sets out to test CBDC’s
Australia’s central bank this week announced projects to help develop the capability for a digital national currency. Brad Jones, The Reserve Bank of Australia’s Assistant Governor, said in a statement that the pilot will contribute to lawmakers’ understanding of CBDC (central bank digital currency) use cases as well as develop industry players’ own learnings.
Among those included in the pilot are payments giant Mastercard, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ), DigiCash, and others. Specific use cases mentioned by research firm Digital Finance CRC (DFCRC) include enabling the use of CBDC in offline payments and foreign exchange networks. DFCRC is helping Australia’s Reserve Bank with said pilot program.
CBDCs are receiving increased interest from regulatory bodies around the world as countries look to further digitize their economies and take advantage of technology that could possibly streamline existing financial systems. Possible advantages also include financial inclusion as blockchain technology is able to avail financial services to those without a bank account. The security and immutability of this technology could also help regulators cut down on fraud and money laundering.
Near Protocol releases Blockchain Operating System (BOS)
Layer 1 blockchain Near has released its latest product, the Blockchain Operating System, or BOS. Meant to act as a common frontend for accessing Web3 products and deploying dApps, this new development was announced at ETHDenver, a blockchain industry conference in Denver, Colorado in the United States. The frontend is currently in alpha and users will notice that one of its flagship components, Near social, is a Twitter-like experience.
Near uses sharding technology in order to solve the scalability problem faced by many blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin. Near’s token, $NEAR, is also its governance token and can be staked for rewards. Over the course of its existence, the platform has built out capabilities to be cross-chain. This recent effort underscores its commitment to usability, as people can now use Near to explore Web3, interact with each other using human readable digital accounts, and utilize multiple other blockchains, all from one place.
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☕️The Morning Cup: Mastercard pumps brakes on crypto functionalities, Near announces Blockchain… was originally published in The Poloniex blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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