Ripple’s real-time settlement platform xRapid is now commercially available, according to an announcement published October 1. xRapid is a platform designed to speed up international payments, while eliminating the need for a pre-funded nostro account. The product purportedly sources liquidity from digital currency XRP on exchanges globally, making cross-border transactions faster and cheaper compared to traditional methods. The pilot phase of xRapid was launched in May, with the participation of financial institutions and payment providers, such as MercuryFX and Cuallix. The participants in the pilot reported transaction savings of 40–70 percent, as well as an improvement in transaction speed — …

A social entertainment platform has the ambition of eliminating “burnout” among the world’s most popular content creators – helping them to produce quality broadcasts and reach millions of fans without the pressures imposed on them by current market-leading websites. You42 bills itself as a space where games, music, video, news and sports come together. The company wants to provide an exciting place for influencers – as well as record labels, authors, studios and artists – to connect with fans and maximize revenue from their creations through an intuitive cryptocurrency ecosystem. According to its white paper, the entertainment industry is “fractured” …

PopChest is a service that allows YouTubers and video producers to earn money from their videos without the need for advertising. Users pay a very small fee in Bitcoin, usually $0.25 (approximately 0.000414 BTC at the time of my writing), to watch the content producer’s video. This directly supports the creator, and also allows users to see exclusive content. PopChest has had limited success, but recently, a YouTuber with 600,000 subscribers signed up for the service, creating a surge in interest. PopChest PopChest was founded on 7th May 2015 by Valerian Bennett and James Poole, with the intention of creating …

You watch a striptease like “Hyena” by Sweet Lips on Vimeo, and you can’t help but want to tip her. The video takes amateur erotica to a whole new level in production quality. The lighting, the music, the video editing, the camera work and—obviously Sweet’s well-honed art of seduction—all cry out for appreciation. But there’s just one problem: it’s true that Vimeo supports tipping, but only PayPal or credit cards are accepted. I have an inkling that many a person stops himself from tipping a Vimeo stripteaser to keep Sweet Lips’ name off his credit card statement. This is a …