Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Strike, a payments app focused on the Bitcoin blockchain, is now available in Europe.
• The platform recently expanded to Africa and its app is also accessible in Latin America.
• Strike raised $80 million in 2022 as it sought to expand its services globally.

Strike, the digital payments app built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, announced the expansion to the European market on April 24. 

With this launch, Strike can now offer its customers in the region access to crypto, including the buying, selling and withdrawal of the world’s flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC).

What does Strike’s expansion to Europe mean?

Strike’s launch in the European market comes as the crypto sector experiences renewed interest, particularly after the debut of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. BTC price rallying to highs of $73k is fueling fresh demand amid the halving.

The expansion into Europe will see the Bitcoin-centric platform challenge for dominance in a market that has the likes of eToro, Coinbase and BitPanda.

Strike aims to allow users a chance to buy and sell Bitcoin at much lower processing fees than what rivals such as Coinbase currently offer. The platform’s successful pilot with USD-EUR conversions adds to the appeal, which is what traditional money transfer providers like Wise lack.

As well as Europe and the United States, Strike’s services are available in Africa and Latin America.

The company raised $80 million in a Series B funding round announced in September 2022.

The post Bitcoin payments app Strike is now available in Europe appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Worldcoin subsidiary plans to sell up to 36 million WLD tokens over next six months
• WLD supply could increase by as much as 19%.
• Worldcoin price hovered around $5.48 on Wednesday, flat on the day after paring earlier gains.

The scenario that the supply of Worldcoin increases by up to the above number of coins stems from plans outlined in a blog post published on April 23.

“To meet the increasing demand for orb-verified World IDs around the world and support the growth of the Worldcoin network, World Assets Ltd. (a subsidiary of the Worldcoin Foundation) expects to sell WLD tokens from the World Assets treasury in the coming months,” Worldcoin Foundation said in the announcement.

In particular, World Assets is looking to sell between 500,000 to 1.5 million WLD tokens every week for six months. The tokens will account for about 0.1% to 0.4% of Worldcoin’s weekly trading volume.

According to the blog post, the tokens are from the World Assets treasury and will be sold via private sales to non-US institutional trading firms.

“These private placements of WLD will take place for up to 6 months and will include certain measures designed to prevent WLD sold outside the US from flowing back into the US,” Worldcoin Foundation team noted.

Worldcoin (WLD) token price

If World Assets sells the expected weekly total of up to 1.5 million WLD tokens (worth about $8.2 million) the total sales for the six months could reach 36 million tokens. The value of the new WLD supply hitting the market could be up to $197 million, given current WLD token price of $5.48.

Per CoinGecko data, Worldcoin’s 24-hour trading volume stands at $216 million while circulating supply is just over 194 million.  

Worldcoin (WLD) price today is up about 9.7% in the past week and down by about 36% in the past 30 days.

Regulatory headwinds and slowdown in AI tokens is likely behind the decline this past month. However, WLD price is more than 456% up since its all-time low of $0.9731 reached in September last year.

The token launched in July 2023, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In March, Worldcoin surged to its all-time high of $11.74, getting tailwinds from the broader AI narrative. Worldcoin’s plans for a new Ethereum layer-2 called World Chain also buoyed prices.

The post Worldcoin update: What’s going on with the WLD token? appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Archax, Ownera and The HBAR Foundation have enabled the first tokenization of BlackRock’s money market fund (MMF) on Hedera.
• This is a major development in the real-world assets (RWAs) industry and comes after abrdn plc tokenized its MMFs on Hedera last year.

The crypto world has witnessed a historic moment in the real-world assets (RWAs) industry after Archax, a London-based digital asset exchange, broker and custodian, tokenized the BlackRock ICS US Treasury money market fund (MMF) on the Hedera (HBAR) blockchain.

Archax collaborated with the HBAR Foundation and the institutional-grade digital assets platform Ownera to bring the MMF to Hedera.

According to details in an announcement, the milestone follows Hedera Council member abrdn’s successful tokenization of its MMFs on Hedera last year.

abrdn is the largest active wealth manager in the UK and its flagship tokenized funds marked a major milestone in the asset management industry.

Today we witness #RWA history as @BlackRock’s ICS US Treasury money market fund (MMF) is tokenized on @Hedera with @ArchaxEx and @OwneraIO, marking a major milestone in asset management by bringing the world’s largest asset manager on-chain 🏦 pic.twitter.com/1Kye8cjAJx

— HBAR Foundation (@HBAR_foundation) April 23, 2024

Hedera’s growing RWA adoption

The RWAs sector is getting a big boost from MMFs, which offer suitable investment vehicles for investors with institutional stability and yield.

With tokenised MMFs allows for the trading of their shares on exchanges such as Archax and provide extra benefits that include instantaneous transfer and deployment as collateral rather than just being used for traditional subscriptions and redemptions.

“The addition of MMF shares tokenized on Hedera, enabled by Archax, is a huge vote of confidence. Hedera’s unmatched speed, security, and low-cost infrastructure is ideally suited for the institutional-grade tokenization of real-world assets made possible by Archax,” Shayne Higdon, CEO of The HBAR Foundation, said in a statement.

HBAR price soars to 4-week high

HBAR price surged after the news, rising more than 46% to reach highs of $0.1314 on Tuesday.

The token changed hands at around $0.087 before the news and is currently sitting at its highest level since March 27. Data from CoinGecko shows HBAR’s 24-hour trading volume has spiked more than 600% to over $346 million.

The post BlackRock tokenizes Money Market Fund on Hedera, HBAR soars appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Crypto.com planned to launch its trading services in South Korea on April 29,
• The company had acquired OK-BIT and PnLink for regulatory compliance.
• Despite the temporary halt, the company remains committed to navigating challenges to eventually enter the country.

Crypto.com has decided to halt its plans to enter the South Korean market temporarily.

The move comes as the company faces regulatory challenges in one of the world’s most vibrant cryptocurrency hubs.

Crypto.com facing regulatory hurdles despite acquisitions

Earlier this month, Crypto.com announced its plans to enter the South Korean market, to offer South Korean customers access to a wide range of cryptocurrencies and exclusive non-fungible token (NFT) projects.

The company had made significant strides towards establishing its presence in South Korea by acquiring two local cryptocurrency firms, OK-BIT and PnLink in August 2022. However, the operating license acquired through the acquisition of OK-BIT will be expiring in November and Crypto.com intended to launch on April 29 so as to be operational by the time the OK-BIT license expires.

However, despite initial enthusiasm, Crypto.com has encountered regulatory challenges that have forced it to put its South Korean expansion on hold. To start with, OK-BIT was not qualified to offer fiat-to-crypto services meaning Crypto.com requires to meet more stringent compliance requirements to become fully compliant in the country.

In addition, local sources are reporting that South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which operates under the Financial Services Commission, found issues with the anti-money laundering data submitted by Crypto.com thus prompting the FIU to start an on-site inspection immediately.

There are also reports that the FIU did not approve a key leadership change at Foris DAX Korea Limited, the entity behind Crypto.com’s operations in South Korea. However, a company spokesperson has cleared the air saying that te company was working to update some of its directors of its local entity, as a procedural formality, and it has no impact on the exchange’s ability to launch its app in South Korea on April 29th.

In a recent email, the company acknowledged the difficulties faced by foreign exchanges in breaking into the South Korean market but reiterated its commitment to collaborating with local regulatory authorities to navigate through the complexities.

Crypto.com remains optimistic about its prospects in South Korea and recognizes the market’s tremendous potential and the opportunities it presents for growth. It aims to eventually make its mark in one of the world’s most dynamic cryptocurrency markets after addressing regulatory concerns and fostering cooperation with local authorities.

The post Crypto.com delays South Korea launch amid regulatory hurdles appeared first on CoinJournal.