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Flipkart, the Indian commerce giant, will allow customers to buy items in the metaverse

Flipkart, the Walmart-backed Indian e-commerce giant, has launched a pilot program to let its customers experience shopping in a metaverse environment. The company announced the launch of its own metaverse, called Flipverse, in which different brands will be able to offer their own shopping experiences.

Flipkart to Launch Flipverse: A Shopping Metaverse

Flipkart, one of the largest e-commerce companies based in India, has announced that it will test its own shopping experience in the metaverse. Called Flipverse, this metaverse will allow customers to experience shopping as if they were physically present in an online store through their smartphone.

According to the company, the experience wants to bring gamification and loyalty points to the shopping experience, allowing customers to accumulate supercoins and digital collectibles from different brands that are already accredited to be part of this pilot program.

To create the new platform, Flipkart partnered with eDAO, a company incubated by Polygon, to prepare the metaverse experience for launch this month. The company has already signed up several key partners, including Puma, Noise, Nivea, Lavie, Tokyo Talkies, Campus, VIP, Ajmal Perfumes, and Himalaya, who will be able to offer their own custom booths and experiences in the Flipkart metaverse.

A Flipkart executive stated:

The idea is to get millions of users to experience Flipverse and open the door to the future of shopping. Fifteen years ago, we were the first Indian company to launch Web 2.0-based commerce. And I feel that today we are the first company to launch Web 3.0 commerce.

Retail and the metaverse

While metaverse retail experiences have been fairly limited so far, with video from 2017 resurfacing this year showing an example of how shopping would be done in a hypothetical Walmart-themed metaverse, Flipkart and Polygon believe there is a great opportunity in the future for that. type of virtual shopping experience.

Sandeep Narwal, co-founder of Polygon, stated:

While we're just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible in the metaverse, we see e-commerce as one of the defining use cases. Combining top brands with Flipkart's eCommerce expertise in a virtual environment revolutionizes online retail as we know it.

Walmart, which owns 72% of Flipkart, already made its first metaverse move into the Roblox universe in September, launching two experiences called “Walmart Land” and “Walmart’s Universe of Play.”

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Are cryptocurrency trading bots a scam?

Scam is such a strong word in today’s world. Why is this the case? It is because scams are rampant in every corner of the world and in every industry where finance is involved. Unfortunately, bad actors are actively working to trick people into stealing their funds, as the cryptocurrency community has witnessed in recent months.

Millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies have been stolen by digital hackers, mainly due to weaknesses in specific dApps or various bridging protocols. Scammers have scoured Twitter and other social apps like Telegram and Discord to steal people’s crypto, claiming it’s the latest and greatest project, only to end up stealing their ETH.

Are cryptocurrency trading bots similar or the same as a hack or a scam? It’s time to take a moment and dig a little deeper into this topic.

How to identify a scam

There is a fine line between a hoax and a legitimate project. How is this line? Scams are often portrayed as too good to be true, or too good to pass up.

If a project promises the moon, it’s time to step back and do more research. Offers of free tokens or large airdrops should be accepted with caution. Legitimate gifts do exist, but with reputable companies that have a proven track record.

Scams usually don’t show the faces or names of the people working on the “project”. If someone isn’t searchable on LinkedIn or Twitter, that’s a big red flag. Be careful when dealing with these so-called “companies” who do not reveal their true identities. If they were legitimate, they would have nothing to hide.

Scams can be easy to detect if the email received or the message read appears to be “spam” in nature. If there are misspellings, grammatical problems, or repetitive language, it is likely a scam and should be ignored.

Can a cryptocurrency trading bot be a scam?

A cryptocurrency trading bot “company” can be a scam, yes. Bots themselves do not have the ability to withdraw funds from a user’s account. Are there bad actors in the cryptocurrency trading bot space? As mentioned above, yes, which is why it is important to do due diligence when selecting a particular company to set up a trading robot.

Most bots on the market today are indeed legitimate, and most of them connect via API to a popular exchange.

How to identify a legitimate cryptocurrency trading robot

Potential crypto bot users are looking for a trusting relationship between them and the company they are going to sign up with. Various ways to detect the legitimacy of a bot can include the following:

exchange associations

customer feedback

verifiable history

performance history

Faces linked to social proof

The above resources will help determine the legitimacy of a cryptocurrency trading bot company. For example, looking at Stoic AI, potential investors can clearly see the features on the main site.

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Visa Launches Bitcoin and Crypto Debit Cards in 40 Countries in Partnership with FTX

The partnership allows FTX Exchange users in 40 countries to easily spend their bitcoins and cryptocurrencies at any merchant that accepts Visa cards.

FTX is launching bitcoin and cryptocurrency-backed debit cards in 40 countries.

The exchange has partnered with Visa and will focus on Latin America, Asia and Europe.

Despite the bear market, Visa believes bitcoin holders still want to use BTC for payments.

Visa has partnered with one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, to launch bitcoin and cryptocurrency debit cards, according to a CNBC report.

The offer will be available to FTX users in more than 40 countries, with a focus on Latin America, Asia and Europe.

Visa, along with its competitors in the market, continues to assert that bitcoin and cryptocurrency users still want to use their holdings as a medium of exchange, even amid a bear market downturn.

“While stocks are down, there is still a steady interest in cryptocurrencies,” said Visa Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu, according to the report.

Debit cards, which are already available in the US, simply connect to the FTX platform, allowing users to spend digital assets in their wallets without the need to withdraw assets from the exchange platform.

“We don’t have a position as a company on what the value of cryptocurrency should be, or if it’s a good thing in the long run — as long as people have things they want to buy, we want to make it easy.” said Prabhu.

Visa’s main competitor, Mastercard, has also partnered with several different companies to offer debit cards that support bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. American Express has also expressed interest in offering a similar product, though its chief executive said it likely wouldn’t be “any time soon”.

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Digital bank FV Bank integrates USDC stablecoin for direct deposits

In addition to USDC support, FV Bank also plans to launch an escrow service in Q4 2022, targeting major currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Global digital bank FV Bank is the latest financial platform to allow deposits into the Circle-backed USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin.

FV Bank on Wednesday announced the launch of a new service that allows account holders to make direct USDC deposits to bank accounts in US dollars. The new feature allows customers to receive USDC into their accounts in a similar way to traditional deposits such as wire transfers or the automated clearing network.

Per the announcement, received USDC funds are instantly and automatically converted to United States Dollars (USD) at the time of deposit. This new solution allows FV Bank users to issue invoices to their international customers in USDC, enabling faster and cheaper transactions and conversions, the company said.

“We believe this feature will greatly improve the user experience and open up smoother trading,” FV Bank CEO Miles Paschini told Cointelegraph.

Paschini noted that USDC will be the first stablecoin accepted for USD deposit at the moment, but FV Bank may consider more stablecoins in the future.

“We chose USDC because of its license, reserve certifications, and real-time 1:1 liquidity,” noted the CEO.

In addition to integrating USDC, FV Bank also plans to launch its own escrow service in Q4 2022, which will allow customers to hold digital assets in a escrow account alongside their escrow account. According to Paschini, FV Bank custody will support major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and other currencies “based on our supported asset criteria.”

FV Bank is a cryptographic digital bank regulated by the Office of the Financial Institutions Commissioner of Puerto Rico. The company originally planned to launch cryptocurrency custody services in 2021, following the lead of major US banks such as Standard Chartered.

According to the CEO, the company’s cryptocurrency roadmap has not suffered any issues despite the ongoing crypto winter.

“Overall, the bear market has not affected our business as we continue to grow and expand our services responsibly,” said Paschini.

FV Bank is not the only financial institution to join the USDC recently. On Tuesday, cryptocurrency-compatible stock trading app Robinhood announced the USDC listing. The stablecoin will be available for transfer on the Polygon and Ethereum networks today.

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Payments company Bolt cancels deal to acquire cryptocurrency company Wyre

California-based online payments company Bolt pulls out of a deal to buy cryptocurrency provider Wyre. News of the scrapped deal, which was agreed earlier this year, comes amid plummeting valuations in the cryptocurrency and fintech sectors.

Bolt Abandons Wyre’s $1.5 Billion Acquisition Plan

Bolt Financial, a San Francisco-based U.S. technology company, said on Friday that it had canceled a deal to buy cryptocurrency infrastructure provider Wyre Payments, Reuters reported Saturday. The e-commerce platform announced in early April a definitive agreement to acquire Wyre for $1.5 billion.

The deal was considered one of the biggest acquisitions of cryptocurrency companies this year. After a funding round in January, Bolt was last valued at $11 billion. The report notes, however, that high-tech valuations are under more pressure as investor confidence has been hit by recession fears and negative stock market developments.

Payment processor Stripe and fintech firm Klarna Bank also made significant valuation cuts, Reuters noted. Industry valuations have also dropped significantly in the cryptocurrency sector during the market slump in recent months.

In a statement released, Bolt emphasized that he will continue his partnership with Wyre. The online payments company explained that remaining independent would allow it to focus on its core areas of business. The company’s CEO, Maju Kuruvilla, was quoted as saying:

We will continue our existing business partnership with Wyre to pave the way for the integration of cryptocurrencies into our ecosystem, bringing Wyre's innovative cryptocurrency infrastructure to the world.

Wyre offers blockchain-connected payment APIs and fiat ramps for cryptocurrency, forex and cryptocurrency liquidity to users of various cryptocurrency projects. It was created in 2013 and, like Bolt, which was founded a year later, is based in San Francisco.