Crypto is ‘an important part of how customers transact’, Walmart CTO says

Walmart Chief Technology Officer Suresh Kumar expects “a lot of the disruption” around crypto “in terms of different payment methods, and different payment options.”

Crypto adoption across the payments industry continues to gather speed, with major financial institutions adding various cryptocurrencies to payment methods for merchants and other online platforms.

And Walmart’s Global Chief Technology Officer Suresh Kumar says digital currencies are set to become a crucial part of customer transactions.

Kumar’s comments came during an interview with Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit aired on Monday.

Walmart is one of the leading global companies embracing crypto, and the Walmart CTO reiterated the role crypto will play in the retail giant’s business and across the globe.

Whether it is physical goods or virtual goods, they play a part in terms of what a customer wants,” Kumar said as he highlighted digital assets’ use both in the metaverse and in live streams (what’s happening with crypto support in payment apps or social media apps.)

Crypto important to how customer transact

Kumar also spoke about Walmart’s plans around the growing footprint of crypto adoption. According to the retailer, customer transactions going into the future will largely be digital and crypto is already playing a big role in that.

Crypto will become an important part of how customers transact,” the Walmart CTO explained, adding that the company wants to ensure such transactions are “friction free for customers” as much as possible. In this way, he added, users will easily be able to buy digital assets and also “drive value out of it.”

The company is therefore looking at how to streamline product discovery amid the global push that’s putting crypto on the forefront of various payment options. 

I think a lot of the disruption is going to start happening in terms of different payment methods, and different payment options,” Kumar told Yahoo Finance.

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ANKR price outlook after a key development

Ankr (ANKR/USD) surged by 15% on Tuesday, making it one of the top intraday gainers on the day. The gains came on the back of positive cryptocurrency news.

Into the briefs – ANKR is an Ethereum-based token for the Ankr network. The protocol supports Web3 infrastructure and acts as a cross-chain DeFi staking platform. The network aims to make it easy and less expensive for everyone to participate in blockchain through staking, building dapps, and hosting nodes. The ANKR token is used for payments, governance, and insurance for network users.

Tuesday’s gains came after Ankr became one of the first Remote Procedure Call providers for Layer-1 blockchain Aptos. The partnership allows developers to build scalable and safe dApps on top of Aptos. The Monday announcement follows other developments. 

Last month, Ankr partnered with Polygon to expand Web3 building for supernet developers. Earlier on, Ankr joined with ssv.network to create a trusted and secure form of ETH Liquid Staking.

ANKR overcomes oversold bottom after the latest gains

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Source – TradingView

The technical outlook shows ANKR has overcome an oversold bottom of $0.026. The cryptocurrency met resistance at the descending trendline and is facing some correction. 

Based on the descending trendline, ANKR’s recovery could be followed by a sharp correction. However, $0.026 is the base level for the token, as it is yet to break below it since May. If we are to see further gains, bulls must overcome the descending trendline. 

ANKR concluding thoughts

The latest developments give a bullish boost to ANKR. However, as long as the price remains below the descending trendline, we would be hesitant to issue a bull call. Nevertheless, ANKR is signalling a price bottom at $0.026. Thus, it could be a matter of time before we experience a bullish reversal of the cryptocurrency.

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Ripple’s XRP price maintains a choppy movement. What’s going on?

Ripple’s (XRP/USD) has been trading in a choppy pattern for almost a month now. Quick short-term price appreciations have been followed by almost an equivalent of declines. The upside has rarely surpassed $0.54, while the downside has held to $0.43. However, the price action shows that XRP bulls are relentless. 

Well, Ripple’s case with the SEC remains a focal point. Of course, both parties submitted their motions for a summary judgement last month. While the SEC has held its ground, Ripple is optimistic about triumphing against the regulator. XRP gained strongly in September on the back of positive expectations of the case resolution. 

The recent sluggishness of XRP occurs due to the lack of sufficient catalyst for further upside. Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse has expressed disappointment with the SEC. He has pointed out that litigation is not about the law but power.

In a statement during the DC Fintech Week, Garlinghouse said that he expects a resolution in the first half of next year. That suggests that the case’s outcome comes up to the second quarter. The indication could be a little of a disappointment to the XRP enthusiasts. As CoinJournal reported, the investors had earmarked an “end game” as soon as the end of this year or early 2023. Still, the expectation could be met if the resolution occurs early in the first quarter.

Aside from the SEC case proceeding, Ripple has had positive developments lately. The blockchain is seeking to bring Ethereum smart contracts to its ledger. The move would increase liquidity for XRP through the new sidechain. XRP has shown limited movement since the news dropped.

XRP in choppy movement after the latest surge

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Source – TradingView

The daily chart shows that XRP lacks a directional basis. Nonetheless, the cryptocurrency has maintained the previous gains as bulls are relentless at $0.43. Momentum is weakening as a MACD bearish crossover was initiated about a week ago. However, we can’t reliably say the token is bearish. 

Should you buy XRP?

At the current level, XRP is not attractive. The current choppy pattern could force a price break to the upside or downside depending on the existing sentiment.

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Layer 1 blockchain startup Shardeum raises $18 million in seed funding

Shardeum is an EVM-based layer-1 blockchain project co-founded by Nischal Shetty, the founder of India-based cryptocurrency exchange WazirX.

Shardeum, an EVM-based layer-1 blockchain startup co-founded by WazirX founder Nischal Shetty, has raised $18.2 million in its seed funding round, the platform announced on Tuesday.

The seed round was at a $199 million valuation, Shetty said in a company blog post, noting that the funding funding initiative attracted more than 50 investors. He also shared the news on Twitter.

Major VCs back Shardeum

Some of the VCs backing the startup are Jane Street, Spartan Group, Big Brain Holdings, DFG, CoinGecko Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, ZebPay and WeMade.

The round also attracted numerous angel investors, with the Shardeum co-founder saying that the startup chose to go with as many investors as possible as part of its pursuit of a decentralised outlook on its investor portfolio.

For the round, we chose to have a large number of investors with over 40% of them being angels. With the focus on decentralisation, we wanted to maximise the distribution of SHM and not to have a select few investors that own a majority of tokens. Our cap table includes diverse global institutional, venture and angel investors that are motivated to support Shardeum’s success,” Shetty wrote in the blog post.

Funds to help advance Shardeum’s sharding technology

Shardeum, a proof-of-stake blockchain co-founded by Shetty and Omar Syed, uses sharding to offer a unique architecture for auto scalability, security and energy efficiency. 

Its such issues that Ethereum seeks to solve as it transitioned from proof-of-work consensus mechanism.

According to the Shardeum’s founders, the sharding technology provides for a network designed to better the systems currently in use across the sharded blockchains ecosystem. 

The network is “the first linearly scalable smart contracts platform that increases transactions per second (TPS) by adding more nodes,” according to details on its website.

The blockchain platform will use the funds to ramp up its marketing, work on its product and design and expand its research efforts. The team also plans to roll out hackathons across India, the United States and other parts of the world over the next year.

Other efforts will go into incentivising developers to build on the Shardeum blockchain as the ecosystem grows.

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