The cryptocurrency wild ride is not over yet.
Regulators are getting closer and innovation is accelerating. It’s safe to say that the blockchain landscape remains a bit of a battleground.
Price volatility continues unabated and scams still dot the landscape, including Monday, September 23. piracy of a OpenAI account on social platform X to promote a fraudulent token. However, blockchain proponents are not shying away from the idea of laying the foundations for what they believe will be the digital economy of tomorrow.
Increasingly, blockchain loyalists have financial pillars at their side. Major players are betting big on the benefits of tokenization as the technology continues to advance. Tuesday September 24, PYMNTS explained how this is shaping up up be an unforgettable September tokenized deposits.
“Deposit Tokens can also be integrated with banking infrastructure, enabling seamless interoperability with traditional banking services,” PYMNTS reported in June. “This integration ensures that users can enjoy the benefits of blockchain technology without abandoning the familiar framework of their existing financial systems.”
That’s why, amid the dust settling from the summer crypto surge, the question of the usefulness of Web3 technology in traditional industries remains. Each week, PYMNTS brings together the most pressing crypto and Web3 news, updates, and announcements, tracking key data points along the industry’s journey toward advancements in global payments and commerce.
Stablecoins seek to simplify financial complexities
As the FinTech sector continues to mature, stable coins emerging as a critical component, impacting payments, remittances, decentralized finance (DeFi) and the broader financial ecosystem, providing a bridge between the traditional financial world and blockchain payments.
“Traditional cross-border payments still have a lot of transparency and cost problems,” Sheraz ShereManaging Director of Payments and Commerce at Solana Foundationtold PYMNTS in an interview published Monday. “To get an experience of 10, it should be, at least from a user experience perspective, like using Venmo. You find the recipient, choose a currency to send them, and they instantly have those funds.
“Blockchain solutions and stablecoins – I don’t like to use the term crypto because it’s more FinTech – have found a product-market fit in cross-border payments,” Shere pointed out.
In the United Kingdom, FinTech Revolutionwould be well on the way to creating its own stable coinwhile Paypalwho launched his PYUSD stablecoin in 2023, has since become the fourth largest stable coin with a market capitalization above $730 million.
When PayPal Businesses announced Friday September 20 its supplement investment In Chaos Labsa company providing blockchain risk management, PayPal has taken note that the investment was made using his stablecoin PYUSD.
Still, not everyone is a step ahead of stablecoins. THE Bank of Canada announced Monday that after years of exploring the idea of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a variety of sovereign stablecoin, it was moving forward.
In the meantime, memecoins – the volatile alter ego of crypto space stablecoins – has risen as a result of THE Federal Reserve‘s drop in interest rates.
Crypto payments continue to gain traction in digital commerce
Fiat-cryptocurrency payment gateway Alchemy Pay‘s Virtual card now supports Google Payallowing users to pair the card with this digital payment platform. By adding the crypto card to Google Pay, users can make payments for everyday transactions faster and more securely, Alchemy Pay said on September 18.
The same day, Visa and digital payments solutions provider based in Singapore dtcpay partnered to help consumers and businesses convert digital currencies in fiat and make digital payments. The collaboration will provide access to 130 million merchants in more than 200 countries and territories.
Technology-focused consumers: the 15% consumers who are usually the first to buy the latest connected device — are often regulars cryptocurrency users, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Shopping with Cryptocurrency: Tech-Driven Consumers Drive Market Acceptance.” Twenty-four percent of these consumers use cryptocurrency at least 10 to 20 times a month.
Elsewhere, native of cryptocurrencies journey platform Travala integrated the Solana blockchain network Monday. As part of the integration, Travala will add SOL travel rewards as an option for loyalty program members, while also deploying its AVA token – used to access its loyalty program – on Solana.
Regulatory scandal, control and survival
The broader digital asset landscape is now grappling with increased regulatory oversight following high-profile collapses like FTX.
Caroline Ellisonthe former girlfriend of FTX founder and criminal scammer Sam Bankman-Fried and the Alameda chief executive who played a role in the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and later became the prosecution’s star witness, Bankman-Fried, received a harsher sentence on Tuesday ( two years in prison) than that recommended by the federal probation department. , or three years of supervised release without prison sentence. She was also ordered to forfeit $11 billion.
Elsewhere, Global Coinbase addressed a federal appeals court on Monday, seeking to force the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create new rules for digital assets. Coinbase Global wanted the SEC to clarify when a digital asset is a security and creates a market structure framework compatible with cryptocurrencieswhile the SEC said current regulations cover the crypto sector.
