CRYPTO MOVERS AND PRICES
Bitcoin (BTC) reached a new record high of about USD 51,700 overnight and continues to climb. Top 10 cryptocurrencies are mixed on the move while spot volumes remain depressed compared to the 2021 average.
Crypto Story of the Day
BTC has made new all-time highs on the back of prominent investors, such as Paul Tudor Jones, endorsing the asset’s attractiveness as an investment. At the same time, a number of actors have integrated BTC into their product offering. We provide an overview of actors that have recently announced business lines incorporating BTC/crypto.
PayPal
PayPal announced in October 2020 that it will allow users to buy, sell, and hold BTC, along with Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. PayPal has placed its crypto ambitions within a broader vision of an increasingly digitized financial system. The firm also indicated that it intends to “increase cryptocurrency's utility by making it available as a funding source for purchases at [PayPal’s] 26 million merchants worldwide.”
Mastercard
Last week payment processor Mastercard announced it will begin supporting unspecified cryptocurrencies on its network later in the year. The firm wrote that it wants to “enable customers, merchants and businesses to move digital value— traditional or crypto— however they want.”
Mastercard has previously partnered with crypto payments firms Wirex and BitPay and exchange LVL “to create crypto cards that allow people to transact using their cryptocurrencies.”
Visa
At the beginning of the month, Visa announced a partnership with “digitally native neoban”' First Boulevard to pilot Visa’s new crypto APIs. These APIs are described as allowing First Boulevard to “enable their customers to purchase, custody and trade digital assets held by Anchorage, a federally chartered digital asset bank.”
In a Q1 2021 earnings call, CEO Al Kelly said the firm is “uniquely positioned to help make cryptocurrencies more safe, useful and applicable for payments…” and broadly described plans to allow users to “cash out onto our Visa credential to make a fiat purchase…”
City of Miami
Last week Miami’s Commissioners passed a resolution that will see the city study the feasibility of paying city employees in BTC and allowing residents to pay fees and taxes with the coin. The resolution also requests the State Government to support the city’s plan to invest in BTC in the future, according to Mayor Francis Suarez.
BNY Mellon
The oldest bank in the U.S. announced plans to custody, transfer, and sell BTC and other cryptocurrencies on behalf of its clients last week. The bank plans to allow cryptocurrencies to eventually pass through the same infrastructure currently being used by its asset-management clients.
Tesla
Last week’s news that Tesla had made an addition of USD 1.5 billion equivalent of BTC to its balance sheet was paired with news that the automaker would start accepting the coin as payments for its products.