American grocery store chain Kroger is accepting cryptocurrency payments ahead of the holiday season. According to an official announcement on Nov. 5, the major retailer will accept Bitcoin Cash (BCH) at all of its stores — Baker's, City Market, Dillons, Fred Meyer, QFC and others — as well as for online purchases. Rodney McMullen, Kroger's chairman and CEO, said that the initiative was spurred by increased demand for cashless payments: “Throughout the pandemic, cashless payments have been thriving, and we see cryptocurrency as a natural progression of the trend to deal less with physical money.” In 2018, Kroger had broken …
Prominent crypto entrepreneurs and supporters, who shared memes on Twitter about doing odd jobs amid an ongoing market crash, were joined by global fast-food giant McDonald's — the brand infamously linked with temporary Bitcoin (BTC) market crashes. BTC price saw a steady downfall ever since breaching into an all-time high of $69,000 back in November 2022. Eventually, as BTC started trading below the $40,000 mark, crypto millionaires and investors on Twitter started sharing memes about getting jobs at fast-food restaurants. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, too, embraced the meme culture and uploaded a new profile picture that shows him at …
The U.S. Department of the Treasury released a study on the high-value art market, highlighting the potential in the nonfungible tokens (NFT) space to conduct illicit money laundering or terror financing operations. The treasury’s “Study of the facilitation of money laundering and terror finance through the trade in works of art” suggested that the increasing use of art as an investment or financial asset could make the high-value art trades vulnerable to money laundering: “The emerging online art market may present new risks, depending on the structure and incentives of certain activity in this sector of the market (i.e., the …
The insurance industry has a long history of providing vital support for major leaps in innovation. It’s no coincidence that the modern insurance industry and the industrial revolution arose in parallel. Indeed, it has been convincingly argued that the invention of fire and property insurance — in response to the Great Fire of London — lubricated the gears of capital investment that powered the industrial revolution and is likely the reason why it started in London. Through that first and each subsequent technological revolution, insurance has offered innovators and investors a safety net and served as an outside, objective validator …
While many nonfungible token (NFT) projects continue to suffer losses due to the bear market, a number of organizations have begun using NFTs to solve real-world problems. In particular, NFTs for subscription/membership-based models, or loyalty programs, are gaining traction. This point was highlighted in Forrester’s 2023 NFT and metaverse predications report, which notes: “Brands will pivot from ‘cool’ non-fungible tokens (NFTs) towards loyalty. In 2023, brands will shift their focus to NFTs linked to loyalty, brand experience, and deepening customer relationships.” Indeed, NFT use cases such as these are being implemented today. For example, Starbucks recently announced an NFT-based loyalty …