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Amazon CEO: Crypto Will Get Bigger, NFT Will Grow ‘Very Significantly’

The CEO of e-commerce giant Amazon is bullish on cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). He says that over time, cryptocurrencies will “get bigger” and NFTs will continue to “grow very significantly.”

Amazon CEO accepts cryptocurrency payments and sells NFTs

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy discussed cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in an interview with CNBC on Thursday. Jassy replaced Jeff Bezos as chairman and CEO of Amazon in July of last year. Previously, he led Amazon Web Services (AWS) from its inception in 2003.

On whether Amazon will accept cryptocurrencies for product payments on its platform, the CEO stated: “We are probably not close to adding cryptocurrencies as a payment mechanism in our retail business.” However, he noted:

I think over time you will see cryptocurrencies get bigger.

Commenting on whether he owns any cryptocurrency, the Amazon executive revealed: “I don’t own bitcoin.”

When asked if Amazon might one day sell NFTs, Jassy replied, “I think it’s possible in the future on the platform.” Revealing that he does not own any NFTs personally, the Amazon boss opined:

I expect NFTs to continue to grow very significantly.

The e-commerce giant is hiring cryptocurrency experts for various divisions of the company. In November of last year, AWS posted a job listing for a digital asset specialist who can “help drive adoption in the global digital asset community.”

Amazon also posted a job posting for a blockchain and digital currency specialist for its payment acceptance and customer experience team in June last year, with the goal of developing the company’s blockchain and digital currency strategy. company as well as a product roadmap.

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Cryptocurrency firm MoonPay receives investments from Justin Bieber, Bruce Willis, and Maria Sharapova, among others

Cryptocurrency payment platform MoonPay recently announced that it has raised $87 million from around 60 A-list celebrities. Investors include singers like Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg, tennis player Maria Sharapova, and actors like Bruce Willis, Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow.

In raising funds, MoonPay attempted to expand the role of non-fungible tokens by increasing fan engagement through content creation. MoonPay got 16% of the funding from celebrities alone.

MoonPay raised a total of $555 million in Series A funding, led by Tiger Global Management and Coatue Management, in November of last year. At the current time, the cryptocurrency startup is valued at $3.4 billion after the completion of the recent funding round.

Other celebrities on MoonPay’s investment list

Other investors in the cryptocurrency company include Drake, Eva Longoria, Jason Derulo, Kate Hudson, Paris Hilton, Matthew McConaughey, Mindy Kaling, Questlove and Shawn Mendes, The Chainsmokers, among many other influential investors.

MoonPay was founded in 2018, the company is based in Miami. The cryptocurrency platform allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods such as debit cards, credit cards, and bank transfers or even mobile wallets.

The platform also accepts payments through Google Pay and Apple Pay. MoonPay, which also provides payment infrastructure for crypto and NFT transactions, facilitates transactions between individuals and crypto businesses and has sold its technology to Bitcoin.com and NFT marketplace OpenSea.

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Cash App Offers Payments in Bitcoin, BTC Roundup and Lightning Network Services

At the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Block, Inc., formerly Square, Inc., announced three new bitcoin services for the company’s mobile payment platform. The Cash App mobile payment platform will feature a “bitcoin payment” service that allows users to automatically invest their work payment in bitcoin.

Cash App adds 3 new Bitcoin services

Jack Dorsey’s Block announced in Miami that the Cash App mobile payment system will offer three new features. The San Francisco company explained that the first feature will be a “bitcoin payment” service that allows people to convert their payment into bitcoin (BTC).

Cash App users will be able to convert 1% or even 100% of their payroll into the main crypto asset. The Block, who also runs Spiral, TIDAL and TBD, explained at the conference that the team has been working on the idea since 2019.

The next service the company unveiled was a bitcoin rounding service that basically allows Cash App users to round up change for bitcoin (BTC) purchases. Essentially, transactions from the user’s Cash App card will round up purchases and automatically transfer the change to the user’s BTC wallet.

Block is not the first company to introduce bitcoin payment services or BTC rounding services, as the concepts have been around for some time. For example, people can also leverage Coinbase or Bitwage to receive cryptocurrency payments, and Bundil and Roundlyx offer round-up BTC products.

The third Cash App feature announced at the Miami Bitcoin conference was “Lightning Network (LN) Reception” with a seamless Bitcoin user experience. Bitcoin UX will leverage unified QR codes using the Bitcoin BIP 21 improvement proposal.

The QR code can combine Lightning Network invoices and on-chain information to make the process easier for Cash App users. The Cash App has already enabled LN payments since its introduction in January, but now users can take advantage of receiving unified QR codes to accept LN payments directly. The Cash App move follows Atlanta-based payment processor Bitpay, which announced support for LN on Wednesday.

Recent breach leaves 8 million Cash app customers exposed

Cash App news follows the company’s troubles with a former employee causing a massive data breach. Reports show that 8 million Cash App users were affected as the former employee was accused of downloading information linked to customers in December.

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Coinbase to Sign Spree Amid New Push to Expand in Indian Market

Leading US crypto exchange Coinbase is making a new push to expand its presence in India with plans for a major signing wave.

In a new blog post, CEO Brian Armstrong points out how Coinbase Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm, has already invested $150 million in Indian tech companies in the cryptocurrency and web3 space.

Now the exchange plans to quadruple its presence in the country, adding 1,000 new full-time employees to its current headcount of 300.

Armstrong says,

“Coinbase’s Indian tech hub was launched last year and already has more than 300 full-time employees across the state and regions of India. We are excited to harness the dynamic talent of Indian software to develop our products and will continue to invest heavily in our hub in India. We have ambitious plans for India and are looking to hire over 1,000 people at our India hub this year alone.”

In a blog post in February, Nana Murugesan, Vice President of International and Business Development at Coinbase, announced the company’s plans for rapid global expansion.

As part of Coinbase’s plans to establish itself in India, the exchange has made investments in cryptocurrency platforms CoinSwitch Kuber and CoinDCX. Murugesan also listed the top three markets Coinbase had its eye on expanding into.

“An important first step in our strategy is recruiting experienced regional and country leaders from around the world. We are now embarking on a broad global expansion strategy, with hiring and investment plans to enter these markets, which will allow Coinbase to serve customers more locally:

Americas — Latin America, Canada

EMEA: Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa

APAC — South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania, North and East Asia”
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Japan Central Bank Wants Urgent Crypto Regulation, Warns Global Settlement System Could Be Overthrown

A senior Bank of Japan (BoJ) official said the group of 7 nations urgently needs a common framework to regulate cryptocurrencies before they “destroy” the global settlement system.

One of the main reasons given for this was the possibility that Russia used cryptocurrencies to avoid the sanctions that were imposed on it after the invasion of Ukraine.

According to a Reuters report, the BoJ believes that the cryptocurrency is under the spotlight due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and that a loophole could be created that would allow Russia to avoid international sanctions by using it.

In fact, Kazushige Kamiyama, head of the BOJ’s Payment and Settlement Systems Department, says it would not be difficult to create an individual global settlement system using stablecoins, which could include the yen, the US dollar or the euro.

Kamiyama urges the group of seven advanced economies to move quickly to update current rules that will take digital currencies into account. kamiyama said:

“The G7 nations are now working together on this front, while sharing information on current developments,”

However, Kamiyama’s comments run counter to expert opinion on Russia’s ability to use cryptocurrencies with any degree of success. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) stated that the use of cryptocurrencies by the Russian government was “not necessarily practicable.”

It can probably be said that the BoJ is much more interested in designing and rolling out its own central bank digital currency (CBDC). Any development in crypto regulation could have knock-on effects for a central bank digital yen.

Kamiyama noted that the BoJ was keen to keep up with developments and did not want to be left behind.

“Given the number of advanced nation central banks collectively, dramatically and simultaneously moving into CBDC, this could cause major changes to the settlement system in the future,” he said. “Japan needs to make sure it’s not left behind.”