Cryptocurrency adoption continues growing in the Kingdom of Bahrain, with local companies enabling payments in crypto like Bitcoin (BTC). EazyPay, an online payment platform regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), has partnered with Binance Pay to enable crypto payments in the country, EazyPay CEO and founder Nayef Tawfiq Al Alawi announced on Wednesday. The newly launched crypto payment option will be available in more than 5,000 point-of-sale (POS) terminals and online payment gateway across Bahrain, the CEO said. Major local merchants and firms, including Lulu Hypermarket, Sharaf DG, Al Zain Jewelry and Jasmi’s, will be able to accept …

Non-crypto alternative payment systems pose a serious threat to United States security, according to testimony presented at a U.S. House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on National Security, International Development, and Monetary Policy hearing Tuesday. The alternative payments ecosystem should be seen as a whole, and crypto can enhance national security, speakers said. Wilson Center fellow Scott Dueweke told the U.S. House Financial Services subcommittee in written testimony, “By focusing only on cryptocurrencies we risk missing the forest for the trees.” Money services businesses are heavily regulated in the United States, but those based outside the country may be unwilling to …

The cryptocurrency bear market has had an impact on how people pay with crypto, but Bitcoin (BTC) remains a major payment tool despite huge volatility, according to data from BitPay. The share of Bitcoin payments in the total BitPay transactions has been shrinking amid the ongoing cryptocurrency winter, but it’s still the most popular cryptocurrency for payments on the platform. The sales volumes of Bitcoin-based payments on BitPay accounted for as much as 87% last year and dropped to 52% in the first quarter of 2022 amid the bear market, BitPay’s vice president of marketing Merrick Theobald told Cointelegraph. In …

Do you believe that in five years every second transaction in e-commerce will be settled on blockchain? No? Well, that’s what people thought of plastic credit cards versus cash a few decades ago when it came to traditional stores. There is no doubt that Web3 will drastically transform the way e-commerce operates. Using cryptocurrency payments in e-commerce stores will become just as common as accepting PayPal, Klarna, Visa or Mastercard. The stores that don’t adapt their e-commerce platforms to accept cryptocurrencies will soon find themselves out of business. How Web3 has changed the e-commerce landscape Thanks to the converging forces …

Binance announced Friday that it has partnered with the Ukrainian supermarket chain VARUS, saying it will enable cryptocurrency payments for grocery purchases through its Binance Pay Wallet. The grocery store is one of the largest companies in Ukraine with over 111 stores across 28 cities in the country. The company said that this partnership will allow its customers to access instant cryptocurrency payments and fast delivery in 9 cities in Ukraine, namely; Kyiv, Dnipro, Kamianske, Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhzhia, Brovary, Nikopol, Vyshhorod, and Pavlograd. The companies have also announced a “reward fund promotion”, where customers who order anything from the VARUS …

United States President Joe Biden ordered more than a dozen reports to be written when he released his Executive Order (EO) 14067 “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets.” Five of them had due dates in 90 days, and the last three of them were published at once by the Treasury Department on Sept. 16. The reports were prepared in response to instructions in Sections 4, 5 and 7 of the EO. The report ordered in EO Section 4 is titled “The Future of Money and Payments.” The report looks at the several payment systems currently in use that are operated …

With the Trade Ministry officially approving the use of cryptocurrencies for foreign trade, Iran will become the first-of-a-kind adopter in the world. The obvious problem with the news is that the country’s innovative policy obviously aims at circumventing financial sanctions that have been hampering its participation in the global economy for many years. These circumstances set an ambivalent tone for Iran’s experiment — while for some, it could prove crypto’s emancipating ability to shirk the all-too-real hegemony of the United States political will and international financial institutions that enforce it, hardline crypto skeptics could get the proof they need for …

Sept. 7, 2022 marks exactly one year since El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender by enforcing the Bitcoin Law. Advocating for Bitcoin as legal tender last year, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele promised that Bitcoin adoption would benefit the 70% of the local population that had a lack of access to banking services as of 2021. The Salvadoran government also touted Bitcoin as a tool to attract foreign investment, create new jobs and cut reliance on the U.S. dollar in the country’s economy. One may question the current real benefits …

Russia's Finance Ministry has reportedly begun working with governments in “friendly” nations to establish a cross-border stablecoin-based payments platform. According to a Tuesday report from Russia state-owned news agency TASS, deputy finance minister Alexey Moiseev said the government was looking to create the settlement platform in an effort to avoid the use of U.S. dollars and euros. The finance minister reportedly said the Russian government would need to impose additional regulations to enact the platform between itself and friendly nations — possibly including China, Belarus, and North Korea. “We offer mutually acceptable tokenized instruments that will be used on these …

The Bank of Russia, the country’s central bank, has reportedly admitted that cross-border payments in crypto are inevitable in the current geopolitical conditions. The Russian central bank has been rethinking the approach to regulating crypto and agreed with the finance ministry to legalize crypto for cross-border payments, the local news agency TASS reported on Sept. 5. Deputy finance minister Alexei Moiseev reportedly said that the Bank of Russia and the finance ministry expect to legitimize cross-border payments in crypto soon. Moiseev outlined the importance of enabling local crypto services in Russia, noting that many Russians rely on foreign platforms to …

Hardware walletcompany Trezor is moving to enable direct crypto purchases with a new partnership with the crypto fintech startup MoonPay. Trezor, Czech Republic-based hardware wallet provider, has partnered with MoonPay to allow its customers to buy crypto directly in their hardware wallet, according to an announcement on Wednesday. Backed by major industry investors including Tiger Global and Coatue, MoonPay is a crypto payment service, allowing users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) using debit cards, credit cards and other payment methods. In April 2022, the firm raised $87 million from investors like Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg …

Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi released updated information on Aug. 31 regarding the rehabilitation plan for creditors of the long defunct crypto exchange. According to the file, the restriction reference period starts on September 15, in which "the assignment, transfer or succession, provision as collateral, or disposition by other means of rehabilitation claims are prohibited." Kobayashi confirmed that creditors have until September 15 to submit claims regarding funds lost when the early crypto exchange collapsed in 2014: "During the Assignment, etc. Restriction Reference Period, the Rehabilitation Trustee will cease accepting applications for claim transfer procedures through the Rehabilitation Claim Filing …