Square Capital, a crypto-friendly payment firm founded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, is purportedly among the first Bitcoin (BTC)-related companies joining the United States federal emergency lending program. The firm has received U.S. Treasury and Small Business Administration (SBA) approval to become a lender under the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Square to start rolling out PPP applications this week By obtaining approval, Square is officially authorized to support small businesses by providing them with low-interest loans that can be 100% forgiven if used to cover approved costs. Jackie Reses, head of Square Capital, tweeted April 13 that the firm …

Crypto developers must follow consumers closely if they want the industry to take off in a big way, Paypal’s chief technical officer has said. Sri Shivananda — an eBay veteran who has been in his role at PayPal since 2016 — made his remarks at the Economic Times (ET) Global Business Summit, ET reported on March 9. During his speech, Shivananda noted that cryptocurrency has, in many cases, become more akin to “asset play” than to currency. He said: “The main thing to keep in mind in this business is to follow consumers. If consumers start to feel like there’s …

Congress clearly has crypto on the brain, with the question of regulation being a matter of when. At a Jan. 30 hearing before the Fintech Task Force, a body within the United States House of Representatives, lawmakers were focused on bringing crypto into the conversation. The basics The hearing — entitled “Is Cash Still King? Reviewing the Rise of Mobile Payments” — featured testimony from witnesses with backgrounds spanning payment providers, consumer advocates and financial inclusion non-profits. While some of the written testimony provided by the witnesses before the hearing mentioned cryptocurrencies, the degree to which the industry occupied the …

Last week saw a whole host of world leaders — including United States President Donald Trump and Prince Charles of Wales, along with a number of other prominent dignitaries — come together to attend the 2020 iteration of the World Economic Forum that was held in Davos, Switzerland Jan. 20–24. As part of the five-day event, the WEF announced its decision to establish a global consortium for governing digital currencies — including stablecoins. Following the news, the price of Bitcoin proceeded to swiftly rise from around the $8,200 mark to $8,455 within an hour’s time. The consortium will consist primarily …

Adult entertainment website Pornhub has added a new cryptocurrency payment option after PayPal had abruptly stopped servicing its models in late 2019. According to a Jan. 23 blog post, Pornhub now supports Tether (USDT) — a major United States dollar-pegged stablecoin — to allow instant and zero-fee payments via the crypto wallet and browser extension TronLink. Pornhub supports Tron-based USDT TronLink is a native wallet for Tron (TRX), the 12th largest cryptocurrency by market cap that is backed by the Tron Foundation. The USDT token became available on the Tron network after Tether and the Tron Foundation partnered and released …

Former PayPal and Google veteran Mike Blandina has been appointed as the new CEO of major cryptocurrency trading platform Bakkt. Following the departure of founding CEO Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to a United States Senate seat in early December, Blandina has now been promoted to CEO position as he joined Bakkt as chief product officer in April 2019. As announced by Bakkt’s parent company Intercontinental Exchange on Dec. 23, the appointment came into force on Dec. 20. Bakkt’s former COO Adam White will now serve as the company’s president Alongside the new CEO, Bakkt has also appointed Adam White, …

PayPal is suing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for requiring the firm to make “misleading and confusing” disclosures about its fees. The digital payments giant filed a lawsuit against the CFPB on Dec. 11, arguing that the agency has ignored critical differences between digital wallets and prepaid products like prepaid debit cards (GPR). CFPB makes PayPal provide disclosures about fees that it doesn’t charge, the suit says According to a Dec. 11 court filing seen by Cointelegraph, the CFPB mandates that digital wallets and GPR cards should be regulated the same way, which allegedly resulted in a “fundamentally ill-suited” …

A peculiar phenomenon is occurring within the economic sector. In fact, it’s been transpiring over the past few decades. After the rise of the internet and the development of effective communications, the financial industry underwent a technical reconstruction. Those formerly disbarred due to a lack of capital found refuge in this revolution. Internet brokers and e-commerce start-ups with little more than a “.com” suffix proliferated. Some even threatened to subvert entrenched financial institutions. Among those attempting a banking coup was Confinity — now Paypal — one of the first online payment processors. Unbeknownst to most, financial disruption was the firm’s …

Dan Schulman, CEO of payment processor PayPal, revealed during an interview that he does indeed own Bitcoin (BTC). On Nov. 20, Fortune reported that PayPal CEO Dan Schulman stopped by its offices where he discussed a variety of topics, including the reason for PayPal’s withdrawal from the Libra Association and whether he is the proud owner of any cryptocurrencies. PayPal was the first to leave Libra Schulman explained that PayPal withdrew from Libra because the company decided to put its attention elsewhere. According to the CEO it was a question of “where do we want to put our attention, and …

Payment processor PayPal has led a $4.2 million funding round for cryptocurrency risk management platform TRM Labs. In a Nov. 19 press release TRM Labs announced that it secured $4.2 million in an investment round led by PayPal, with participation from other top investors including Initialized Capital, Blockchain Capital and Y Combinator. Building solutions to prevent crypto fraud and financial crime TRM, which was founded in 2018, aims to support financial institutions across the United States, Latin America, Asia and Europe by measuring, monitoring and mitigating their crypto risk exposure, meeting regulatory requirements and helping streamline their Anti-Money Laundering compliance. …

Bitcoin (BTC) figures could gain an unlikely new convert after the former chief financial officer of PayPal appears to have abruptly lost access to the banking system. In an ongoing Twitter debate on Nov. 18, Roelof Botha revealed that Bank of America (BoA) had chosen to close his account. The reason was not stated in the bank’s correspondence. “Absolutely no explanation” Uploading an edited screenshot of a letter he had received about the closure, Botha summarized: “After being a customer of @BankofAmerica for 20 years, I received this notice today that they decided to fire me as their customer! With …

When thinking of countries that are ahead of the curve in crypto adoption, Turkey might not be the first place that springs to mind. However, Statistica's Global Consumer Survey for 2019 shows that a fifth Turkish residents are acquainted with crypto and have been exposed to it in some form or another. If the figures are true, 20% is the highest proportion of all the countries in the world. Flying under the radar, Turkey has undoubtedly become a crypto giant, and with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently announcing that testing of the digital lira is to be finalized in 2020, …