Swipe Visa holders can now make payments with their crypto using Samsung Pay on their smartphone or smartwatch.

Cryptocurrency Visa card platform Swipe announced a partnership with Samsung Pay on May 1.

The integration allows Samsung Pay users to make payments from their Swipe Visa card balances using Samsung Pay-enabled devices.

The firm claims to have become the first digital wallet platform to provide multi-national support for both Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

The integration allows Swipe cardholders in the United Kingdom and European Union to make payments from their crypto balances at over 50 million locations globally.

Swipe COO John Khenneth, told Cointelegraph that the firm’s relationship with Samsung was formed through mutual issuing bank Contis Financial.

“We were approved by Visa for a digital card program, in addition to our physical card program, a few months ago and have been integrating with the bank and Samsung Pay since,” he said.

Khenneth stated that Swipe is “hoping to tap into those Samsung lovers whom, with the help of Samsung Blockchain initiatives, have made crypto more aware to their audience” through the partnership.

COVID-19 highlights needs for contactless payment solutions

Khenneth reports noting a “large uptick in [the] number of digital payments on Google Pay,” since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.”

“As people move away from cash and physical cards, Google Pay and now Samsung Pay can really help and create new channels of seamless UX,” Khenneth added.

Swipe CEO Joselito Lizarondo said, “Given all of the COVID-19 issues and people

steering away from physical products like cash and, in some instances cards, a digital solution really helps put our client’s needs first.”

Looking forward, Khenneth stated that Swipe is “currently working to go live in Southeast Asia/Asia Pacific region by the end of the year,” adding that the platform recently received approval in the U.S.

Cointelegraph reached out to Samsung and had not received confirmation of their affiliation with Stripe as of press time. This article will be updated accordingly.

By SAMUEL HAIG

While Localbitcoins trade volumes have receded globally since the platform’s KYC overhaul last year, Latin American trade has continued to surge.

Amid declining global volume, Localbitcoins.com continues to comprise a hub for Latin American peer-to-peer (P2P) trade — with Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela posting record volume over recent weeks according to Coin.dance.

This past week saw Localbitcoins trade between Bitcoin (BTC) and the Mexican peso spike by 71%. As such, the week of April 25 saw roughly $430,000 worth of BTC change hands in Mexico — comprising the fourth-strongest weekly trade activity on record.

Latin markets post record volumes during April

Argentinian P2P trade rallied to post a new record of more than $710,000 in weekly volume during the week of April 18. The past week has seen a slight retracement in volume, with $670,000 worth BTC changing hands.

Colombian trade has also rallied to test all-time high volume thresholds this past month — with the week of April 4 producing the market’s second-strongest seven days of trade with $2.7 million in volume. The following weeks have seen volume oscillate between $2.1 million and $2.6 million.

The week of April 4 saw record volume coming out of Chile. with nearly $400,000 in trade. The record followed months of consistently increasing volume, and has been preceded by weekly trade activity worth between $280,000 and $325,000.

Venezuela posts consecutive volume records

This past week saw Venezuelan trade on Localbitcoins post a new record for volume with $4.1 billion worth of BTC changing hands in seven days.

The week comprised the fourth consecutive record for Venezuelan weekly trade since the start of April.

By SAMUEL HAIG

Unlike fiat currencies, such as the Euro or the US-Dollar, the value of Bitcoin (BTC) is not defined by a single entity like a central bank. Instead the price is defined by supply and demand, or in simpler terms, by the price people are willing to pay for it.

  • The Bitcoin price is defined by supply and demand
  • When there is more demand for Bitcoin, the price goes up, when there is less demand, the price goes down
  • The maximum Bitcoin supply is fixed at an upper limit of 21,000,000 BTC

In this lesson, you will learn what determines the Bitcoin price. 

Simply put, the price of Bitcoin goes up when demand for Bitcoin goes up, and the price goes down when there is less demand for it.

Demand depends on a number of factors, such as global events including price declines and advances in prices of stocks and bonds and economic developments on a global scale, such as the ongoing trade war between the United States and China.

However, unlike monetary policy in countries with fiat currencies, which are subject to change in line with political and economic developments, the Bitcoin ecosystem is a fully decentralised monetary system. No one central authority regulates the monetary base, therefore the creation of bitcoins follows detailed rules in a very strict protocol, which we’ve detailed for you below.

The rules the Bitcoin network follows

Transactions added to the Bitcoin blockchain are coded and set in stone forever. Miners in the Bitcoin network compete to be the first node to solve a complex cryptographic puzzle. The winner is declared to be the first node to mine a valid block and receives the associated block reward.

A new block is added to Bitcoin’s blockchain every 10 minutes after consensus in the network has been reached by all network participants on the validity of a block.

A new block is added to Bitcoin’s blockchain every 10 minutes after consensus in the network on the validity of a block has been reached by all network participants.

All transactions in the Bitcoin network have been following a precise and inalterable process since Satoshi Nakamoto created the first block called the ‘Genesis Block’. The only provision in the Bitcoin protocol that entails a change from time to time is the block reward amount that miners get, in a process called “Block Reward Halving”.

Why is the Bitcoin price volatile?

Bitcoin has the highest trading volume among cryptocurrencies, but it’s still a small market compared to other global markets. This means that prices make bigger moves up or down with less money involved. If Bitcoin were to have the same trading volume as, for example, gold, then its behaviour would be very similar in terms of volatility.

As there are only a limited number of bitcoins in circulation and the creation of new bitcoins follows strict rules with a consistently decreasing output (because of shrinking rewards for miners), demand would have to follow the deflationary behaviour of Bitcoin to even theoretically keep prices stable.

News events that are detrimental or beneficial to the reputation of Bitcoin, uncertainty in the future intrinsic value of the cryptocurrency as a store of value, currency risks for large holders of Bitcoin regarding liquidation as well as security breaches may also influence the Bitcoin price.

If Bitcoin had the same trading volume as, for example, gold, its behaviour would be very similar in terms of its average volatility.

Could the Bitcoin price go to zero?

Short answer: Yes.

Fiat currencies which are not used anymore are worthless except to collectors, who will probably still pay you good money for a 100 year-old piece of paper or coin. The worth of a currency is based on its perceived value.

It’s worth noting that currencies that are no longer used usually failed as a result of the introduction of successors or incidents like hyperinflation. Such developments tend to significantly devalue affected currencies. In the case of Bitcoin, hyperinflation is not possible as Bitcoin cannot be created arbitrarily and its production is fixed to a certain amount.

FUD: any type of news coverage that can potentially spread “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”

In the end, the true causes of a decline in Bitcoin’s price are: political pressure, technological failures, and all sorts of media coverage under the umbrella term of FUD: any type of news coverage that can potentially spread “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.” Until Bitcoin really reaches the majority of the world, we can keep expecting both significant price increases as well as significant price declines to occur – for now, volatility rules.

By bitpanda academy

Plusieurs supermarchés et chaînes de restaurants comme McDonald’sSubway ou encore Starbucks, auraient été sélectionnés pour tester la nouvelle monnaie numérique de la Chine dans la zone économique du Xiong’an.

 

En début de semaine, la Commission de réforme et de développement du district du Xiong’An dans la province du Hebei aurait tenu une réunion autour du lancement d’un pilote pour le crypto-yuan, rapporte ChainNews.

Selon le média local, la réunion a rassemblé des institutions bancaires chinoises, des instituts de recherche scientifique, de grandes entreprises comme HuaweiTencent et Baidu, des commerces alimentaires, mais aussi de populaires enseignes de restauration telles que McDonald’sStarbucks et Subway.

Plusieurs banques commerciales d’État travaillent déjà depuis un certain temps sur des applications de portefeuille pour la CBDC chinoise, également connue sous le nom de DC/EP.

La banque centrale serait en bonne voie d’achever sa conception. Le développement des fonctionnalités essentielles serait ainsi bouclé et le gouvernement s’attèlerait au volet législatif de l’émission d’une CBDC.

Récemment, on apprenait que la Chine pourrait émettre sa monnaie numérique à l’occasion des Jeux Olympiques d’hiver de 2022. Le pays s’apprête d’ici là à tester une application mobile pour son stockage et les échanges.

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Depuis lundi, BitPay permet à ses marchands d’accepter le stablecoin adossé au dollar US lancé par Binance en collaboration avec Paxos en septembre 2019.

Le partenariat avec Binance va au-delà de la prise en charge d’un autre stablecoin, il s’agit de rendre les paiements transfrontaliers simples et faciles pour les deux entreprises en tirant parti de l’influence mondiale de Binance Exchange. Avec BUSDBitPay élargit les choix de paiement blockchain pour tous nos clients,” a commenté Stephen Pair, PDG de BitPay, dans un communiqué partagé avec Cryptonaute.

BitPay prenait en effet déjà en charge plusieurs stablecoins, à savoir USD Coin (USDC)Gemini Dollar (GUSD) et Paxos Standard (PAX).

En début d’année, la firme qui se targue de traiter plus de 1 milliard de dollars de crypto-transactions a également ajouté le support pour la crypto-monnaie de Ripple, XRP, à sa solution.

Le partenariat avec BitPay permettra aux commerçants et aux compagnies du monde entier d’accepter BUSD, le stablecoin libellé en USD approuvé par le NYDFS,” a affirmé Changpeng Zhao, fondateur de Binance.

On apprend que dans le cadre de cette collaboration, le processeur de crypto-paiement américain traitera aussi les dons pour la Blockchain Charity Foundation, une entité à but non lucratif qui promeut l’utilisation de la technologie blockchain dans les projets humanitaires et auprès des organismes de bienfaisance.

Dernièrement, le fournisseur de solutions de paiement Poynt s’est associé à BitPay afin d’intégrer le paiement en Bitcoin et crypto-monnaies dans ses terminaux POS utilisés par plus de 100 000 marchands.

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La Banque centrale d’Argentine se penche sur un nouveau système de compensation basé sur la technologie blockchain RSK. La solution devrait être prochainement testée par les plus grandes institutions financières du pays.

 

Fin 2019, IOV Labs (ex RSK Labs), la startup à l’origine de la technologie blockchain Smart Contract Network (RSK), a lancé une preuve de concept avec la Banco Central de la República Argentina (BCRA) visant à mettre en œuvre une plateforme décentralisée basée sur RSK pour suivre plus efficacement et accélérer les paiements.

Plusieurs grandes institutions financières du pays comme BancorBBVAICBC ou encore Santander, ont désormais accès à la solution et sont ainsi en mesure d’effectuer des transactions « de manière standardisée, fiable et sécurisée, avec une traçabilité de bout en bout ».

Nous sommes convaincus qu’avec ce type de plateforme, le système financier pourra construire un écosystème collaboratif en phase avec les avancées technologiques modernes et à égalité avec les systèmes financiers les plus innovants de la planète,” a commenté Diego Gutiérrez Zaldívar, PDG d’IOV Labs.

Similaire à Ethereum en terme de caractéristiques, le réseau Smart Contract Network (RSK) est une sidechain, soit une chaîne secondaire, sur la blockchain Bitcoin qui permet notamment de programmer des contrats intelligents (smart contract).

Alors que plusieurs banques centrales dans le monde s’intéressent au développement d’une monnaie numérique (CBDC), IOV Labs ne précise pas si la solution pourrait être utilisée pour la création d’un peso argentin numérique.

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