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Mastercard UK Partners With José Mourinho For First-Ever NFT Giveaway

Mastercard, a multinational financial services corporation, has jumped on the NFT bandwagon. Non-fungible tokens (NFT) have continued to gain popularity among mainstream industries. The most recent addition to the NFT world is the global payments leader.

Related Reading | Visa Describes NFTs As Promising Means To Engage With The Fans

On Thursday, September 16, the company announced that it had created its first-ever NFT in partnership with the renowned football coach José Mourinho, who is also a Mastercard global ambassador. This unique NFT is an animated digital football with José’s signature on one of the panels.

The company’s U.K. branch made this announcement. It included a raffle for cardholders in the United Kingdom to win the company’s first NFT.

According to the company, the experience will be in English and is free to book, and is available until September 30. Cardholders based in the U.K. can sign up from now till that date for a chance to win.

Additionally, only one winner will be selected as there will be only one NFT. Details of how to receive the NFT will be shared by Mastercard’s sponsorship team, via email after the prize draw.

The NFT will be hosted on a server owned by the company and backed by their proprietary technology.

MasterCard And Its Digital Assets Journey

The Financial Services company entered the crypto space last year. Since then, it has made big moves in crypto and blockchain integrated services. The company acknowledged that digital assets are becoming a more important part of the payments world.

Related Reading | Real Adoption: How Will Mastercard’s Crypto Acceptance Affect Bitcoin Price?

In 2020, Mastercard announced the expansion of its cryptocurrency program, making it simpler and faster for partners to bring secure, compliant payment cards to market. This effort was to aid adoption and create innovative experiences in the crypto space. The company teamed up with Wirex and BitPay to create crypto cards that allow people to transact using their cryptocurrencies.

In a bid to make crypto more accessible to everyone, in March 2021, Mastercard and Wirex officially launched the Mastercard debit card in the U.K. and EEA, as well as the rewards program across the globe.

Total crypto market cap rises to $2.17 Trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap from TradingView.com

In July this year, Mastercard announced the launch of a corporate program, Start Path, for Blockchain and crypto startups. Start Path started with seven global crypto and digital assets startups that focused on solving a unique industry challenge. It has a location in every region.

Still, in July, it announced the creation of a simplified payments card offering for cryptocurrency companies. It said that it will “enhance its card program for cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges, making it simpler for partners to convert cryptocurrency to traditional fiat currency.”

Related Reading | Mastercard Furthers Investment Into Crypto Card Integration

Also, just this month, the company made a big bet on crypto by buying blockchain analytics startup CipherTrace. On September 9, the payments giant announced it entered into an agreement to buy CipherTrace for an undisclosed amount.

“Digital assets have the potential to reimagine commerce, from everyday acts like paying and getting paid to transforming economies, making them more inclusive and efficient,” said Ajay Bhalla, president, Cyber & Intelligence at Mastercard. “With the rapid growth of the digital asset ecosystem comes the need to ensure it is trusted and safe. Our aim is to build upon the complementary capabilities of Mastercard and CipherTrace to do just this.”

The creation of this NFT is Mastercard’s most recent move in the digital assets space.

Other financial services providers are also making moves in the space. Last month, Visa purchased its first NFT. It later went on to release its NFT whitepaper.

Featured image by Mastercard’s priceless.com, Chart by TradingView.com

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Deloitte Survey Shows 76% Of Finance Execs Think Physical Money Is Nearing Its End

A recent survey from Deloitte that collated data from 1,280 senior finance executives in 10 locations across the world produced interesting results regarding the blockchain industry. This survey is Deloitte’s fourth annual Global Blockchain Survey, which focuses on the financial services industry (FSI). Findings from the survey show that there is a need for the industry to turn towards product modernization and distribution in order to see economic growth.

When polled, 76% of the 1,280 respondents said they believed that the end of physical money is near. And that digital assets were set to replace fiat currencies in the next five to 10 years. This will obviously have a significant impact on the financial services industry, but the respondents remained optimistic about the revenue potential of both blockchain and crypto, and digital currencies.

Related Reading | American Rapper Tyga To Launch OnlyFans Crypto-Competitor

“The Deloitte ‘Global Blockchain Survey’ shows that the foundation of banking has been fundamentally outlived and financial services industry players must redefine themselves and find innovative ways to create economic growth in the future of money.” – Linda Paw-czuk, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and global and U.S. blockchain and digital assets leader

Blockchain Is Already Mainstream, Says Survey

The survey also showed that the majority – nearly 80% – of global FSI leaders believed that digital assets are going to be very/somewhat important to their various industries in the next two years. They also see both digital assets and blockchain technologies as a strategic priority now and in the future.

Related Reading | South African Man Loses $900,000 Worth Of Bitcoin After Accidentally Deleting Keys

73% of respondents admitted that a recurring fear was that their various organizations would lose competitive advantage if they failed to adopt digital assets and blockchain technology. Findings also showed that 81% of respondents agreed that blockchain technology is highly scalable, and according to them, has already achieved mainstream adoption.

The world is no doubt headed towards a completely digital world. Things like paper currencies are likely to be obsolete in the near future. Hence, financial services industries need to shift to new business models for revenue generation. Digital assets will be used to simplify payments. And 43% of respondents said that these new payment options represent a “very important” role for digital assets.

Related Reading | Grayscale Tops Up Ethereum Investment To $10 Billion

Richard Walker, a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. financial services industry blockchain leader, had some thoughts on this. “As digital asset disruption rapidly changes the marketplace, global financial services are striving to reinvent themselves, creating businesses to generate new sources of revenue.” Walker went on to add, “Opportunities for real change in several areas of the global financial markets exist for those players that explore new ways to harness the power of blockchain technology and digital assets to reimagine their business modes.”

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Coinbase States Infrastructure Bill Could Impact 60 Million American Crypto Owners

Coinbase’s global tax VP has condemned Congress’s controversial decision to introduce crypto tax provisions into the infrastructural bill. They warned that this bill might impact 20% of the U.S population, which is like 60 million Americans.

The VP of tax leveraged the rushed crypto provisions added to Congress’s bipartisan infrastructure bill. Lawrence Zlatkin slammed lawmakers at the last minute for hastily including amendments that can affect 60 million Americans.

Coinbase Global is an American company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. It’s among the popular online brokers globally and currently supports traders from over 30 countries. Coinbase operates remote-first and lacks an official physical headquarters.

Related Reading | SushiSwap Narrowly Escaped A $350 Million DeFi Hack, Here’s How

A blog post made on August 21 aimed at the Bloomberg editorial article of August 19. The post also commended the crypto provisions for infrastructural bills.

However, Coinbase’s Global VP of tax, Zlatkin, also criticized no provision for public consultation regarding the legislation. He also estimated that about 20% of U.S. residents are into digital asset investment.

 “About 60 million Americans own crypto today and this makes almost one-fifth of the total U.S. population. The entire populace including those Americans merits more discourse than midnight offers implemented at the dying minute.”

Coinbase Officials Claim Bill Is Unfavorable For The Crypto-Community

Lawrence Zlatkin accounts that resentment over the bill’s content extends beyond the scope of the crypto space. The massive public outcry estimates that nearly 80 thousand people had contacted senators in just some days.

The Coinbase global executive highlighted the general definition of a crypto-asset broker as contained in the bill.

This may inflict a strict requirement on the reporting process for software developers and network validators. As a result, these officials may be unable to meet their roles as contained in the bill with the new requirement.

So far bill mandates the software developers, stakers, and miners to do the impracticable, then they are bound to comply.

No practicing lawyer will support them to operate in violation of these laws and risk the penalty for not complying. The penalty for non-compliance that can easily render them bankrupt’ Coinbase executive said and added;

“This development will greatly affect innovation and restrain the emergence of important technology at the early stage of development. Tax policy is supposed to be deliberate and thoughtful, broad overreach is simply a regulatory error.’”

Lawrence Zlatkin also states that digital assets brokers should adopt a similar third-party reporting process as mainstream brokers.

Related Reading | Uniswap Community Reacts Against The New Proposal, Here is Why

The infrastructure bill was issued to the Senate early this month. The populace hopes that there would be amendment opportunities on the legislation as the House plans to scrutinize it in a few months.

Featured image from Pixabay

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Authorities Arrest Perpetrators For Illicit Cryptocurrency Transactions

South Korean Law enforcement authorities have taken 33 individuals into custody for conducting illegal cryptocurrency transactions of $1.5 billion. In addition, these individuals carried out some illegal cross-border transactions using digital assets.

Presently, the authorities investigate them and have fined fifteen while the 14 are yet to be prosecuted. However, four of these individuals are yet to face prosecution but under investigation as of now.

Related Reading | Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao States, “Compliance Is A Journey.”

Individuals Held Accountable For Processing Illegal Cryptocurrency Payments

According to the daily South Korean newspaper, the authorities arrested 33 suspects for getting involved in illegal activities through cryptocurrencies.

Moreover, the individuals were involved in committing several fraudulent acts and money laundering operations. The perpetrators conducted offshore transactions with cryptocurrencies amounting to a tune of $1.5billion that amounts to 1.69 trillion Won.

In segmenting the total amount of transactions in their factions, $707.5 million came from illegal foreign currency exchange. These payments were made to third-party players to transfer profits from cryptocurrency trading.

Authorities Impound Perpetrators For Illicit Transactions in Cryptocurrencies

The cryptocurrency market sits at a prime zone where everyone is expecting a bull run | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

According to the prosecution, the suspects falsified overseas remittance records with a total of $683.9 million. They made these falsifications when they purchase virtual assets abroad.

Related Reading | Russia Plans To Impound Unlawfully Acquired Cryptocurrencies

The last faction is $83.1 million, which the individuals supposedly spent on cash withdrawals they made from abroad with a credit card. According to the authorities, the card is from an Asian country, and the individuals used it to purchase cryptocurrencies from abroad.

We also came to know that one individual amongst the suspects owns a foreign exchange company in the country.

According to the authorities, the man helped his client overseas to bypass South Korean law. As a result, he transferred $261.4 million through 17,000 cryptocurrency transactions in his trading venue. The report also disclosed that the man got a profit of $4.4million from the transactions.

However, the authorities have got him with three others who worked with him in the illegal acts. The four individuals will face prosecution for the violation of the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act.

South Korean Authorities Fine Suspects With A Significant Amount

According to the report, the authorities fined a total of $10.5 million on one of the individuals who used false invoices & bills to engage Bitcoin trading overseas. In addition, the reports revealed that he made $8.7 million from the illegal deals.

A student who is part of the fraud and money laundering will pay a fine of $1.4 million. The student made almost $1.7 million from a deal worth $35 million. According to the report, he transferred the money into many accounts overseas.

Related Reading | Allied Payment Partners NYDIG, Adds Bitcoin To Corporate Treasury

In addition, he used false remittance records and deceived the authorities with lies that the money was for study costs abroad.

Still, on the fines, a worker who is part of the illegal deals got 1.3 million as a fine after making profits from trading in Bitcoin. Besides some people working with him, this worker used $27 million to withdraw from abroad with a South Korean card.

In response to the news, Officials from the Seoul district warned residents of South Korea to avoid such transactions. According to the officials, such illegal transfer in cryptocurrency will attract fines or prosecution.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com
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Survey: Hedge Funds Intend To Hold $300 Billion In Crypto Within 5 Years

A global survey of Chief Financial Officers has revealed that hedge funds are planning to hold 7% of their wealth in crypto within the next 5 years.

Reuters has described the survey results as a major vote of confidence for cryptocurrency assets within the current market environment.

The Hedge Funds Crypto Survey

Financial administrator Intertrust conducted the survey with over 100 CFOs participating from all over the globe. Chief Financial Officers, or CFOs, are executives who are responsible for managing their company’s finances.

As per Intertrust, the results of the survey indicate that hedge funds plan to increase their crypto assets in the next five years.

An average figure based on the responses shows that by 2026, funds aim to keep $313 billion in digital assets, which is around 7.2% of their total assets.

Related Reading | Nearly 1% Of Bitcoin Supply Is Now Wrapped In Ethereum

Another interesting finding from the poll is that 17% of the survey takers believe their funds will work with at least 10% of their assets as crypto, a figure that is around 3% higher than the average.

It’s unclear what the current crypto holdings by the funds look like, but one thing worth noting is that many big-names in the sector seem to already have invested appreciable amounts in digital assets.

Increasing Interest In Cryptocurrency

While huge volatility and uncertainty over regulation keep the majority of traditional asset managers skeptical about cryptocurrency, the hedge funds survey shows that there is still a growing interest in digital assets.

Executive Director at Quilter Cheviot Investment Management says hedge funds “are well aware not only of the risks but also the long-term potential” of crypto assets.

Related Reading | MicroStrategy Receives Over $1.5B In Orders For $500M Notes To Fund Bitcoin Purchases

Examples of firms that have already invested in digital assets include Man Group, Brevan Howard, and Renaissance Technologies. Some of the big-name fund managers who have also committed are Alan Howard and Paul Tudor Jones.

Another prominent case is Skybridge Captial, a US-based firm setup by Anthony Scaramucci, that invested into Bitcoin late last year. Due to trimming their investment early in April, Bitcoin became the largest contributor of their gains.

Overall, it is clear that there is a growing enthusiasm towards crypto assets in the industry.

Bitcoin Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin price hovers over $39,280. The asset is down 11% in the past 30 days, but up 12% in the past 7 days. Here is a chart noting the change in the price of the cryptocurrency:

Bitcoin seems to be on an upward trend | Source: BTCUSD on TradinvView

While BTC seems to be back on track for going up, it’s not yet clear whether we are looking at a bullish market. Some experts believe we may be witnessing a bull trap.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView