The COVID-19 crisis has brought many new users to the world of cryptocurrencies. One of the main concerns for users, however, is whether their bank cards may be blocked due to the purchase of a cryptocurrency, or when withdrawing funds from a crypto account. Can this risk be prevented? Since the COVID-19 outbreak and people’s subsequent desire to protect their savings, interest in cryptocurrency has continued to grow. A June 2020 survey conducted by The Tokenist found that 45% of respondents from 17 countries now prefer to invest in Bitcoin (BTC) rather than stocks, real estate or gold. For comparison’s …

Fabio Canesin, co-founder of blockchain fintech firm Nash, believes that as the world comes out of the COVID-19 pandemic, blockchain technology offers a “unique” opportunity to the public due to its “borderless” nature. During an interview with Cointelegraph, Canesin states that he sees the “greatest” emerging use case in blockchain for three core industries in a post-pandemic era: government, nonprofit, and small-to-mid-size businesses. Blockchain helping to distribute Coronavirus-related stimulus checks For the government entities, Nash’s co-founder explained: “This could mean using blockchain for stimulus checks instead of sending payments via traditional systems, which take much longer and are prone to …

Only with increasing difficulty can one recall a time when the majority of the world was yet to adopt the internet. In 1995, user adoption of the internet had only reached 10% of American households, five years after the very first web browser was launched. Another five years later, in the year 2000, 50% of the United States nation had already adopted the internet. Imagining today’s world without internet is simply unfathomable and, in the future, the same will be said about cryptocurrency. The technologies fostered by the crypto industry are often considered the most disruptive and paradigm-shifting advancements since …

The government of South Korea is trying its best to adopt blockchain technology in various industries. The country’s central bank is reviewing the use of a central bank digital currency, and various government ministries want to adopt decentralized identification features within their current systems. Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and research centers are also looking at blockchain solutions. Everyone knows that blockchain can help the medical industry, but at the same time, applying a new blockchain service structure to traditional industries is not so quick and simple. Lots of testing needs to be done before it can be to be applied in …

When the United States government voted in stimulus payments to its citizens in the wake of COVID-19, to say it went well would be… categorically untrue. From delivering checks to the deceased to the simple fact that most people would have to go to a bank to cash a paper check during a viral pandemic, it became clear that our financial systems are not prepared for this. As countless Americans struggle to stay afloat, the effects of COVID-19 have confirmed what many have suspected for years now — this system was not built to keep up with the needs of …

Michael Novogratz, one of the biggest Bitcoin (BTC) bulls in the world, does not recommend investors to put the majority of their funds into Bitcoin. Although Novogratz is confident that Bitcoin “way outperforms” the precious metal, it is still safer to buy more gold than Bitcoin due to the cryptocurrency’s highly volatile nature. Bitcoin is still “early in the adoption cycle,” Novogratz says “My sense is that Bitcoin way outperforms gold, but I would tell people to have a lot less Bitcoin than they have gold, just because of the volatility,” Novogratz said during CNBC’s Fast Money on July 8. …

On July 9, LabCFTC, the fintech office of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, announced that it will replace its annual one-day Fintech Forward conference with three separate online sessions under the series title Empower Innovation 2020. The new conferences will take place on Sept. 24, Oct. 21 and Nov. 19, with LabCFTC subdividing the days by subject matter. Director and Chief Innovation Officer Melissa Netram told Cointelegraph this was an effort to deal with reduced attention span for virtual rather than physical events: “To do a full day we knew that we’d probably end up with people getting distracted.” Fintech …

Animoca Brands, the firm behind blockchain-powered games The Sandbox, F1 Delta Time, and Crazy Defense Heroes, has reported unaudited revenue for the first four months of 2020 of $7.34 million amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The first quarter was Animoca Brands’ strongest on record with $4.33 million in revenue, followed by a record month with $3 million during April. Animoca Brands held $6.08 million in fiat and crypto assets at the end of April. Roughly $770,000 of the company’s holdings comprised Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), alongside $1.12 million in various altcoins. Animoca attributed the increase in its crypto holdings to …

During a Unitize panel on Monday, Balaji Srinivasan commented that COVID-19 has changed everything — and it could ultimately end up accelerating Blockchain adoption. Srinivasan is known for his numerous roles in the crypto space. He’s an angel investor, entrepreneur, former chief technology officer of Coinbase and a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He believes COVID-19 has made centralized governments more powerful than ever before and feels that government overstepping is causing people to seek new ways to maintain their fundamental rights. He speculates that this is where crypto and blockchain could play a big role in the future, adding: …

The global travel industry ground to a standstill after governments worldwide announced strict lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19. At the Unitize virtual blockchain conference on July 6, Juan Otero, the co-founder and CEO of the Binance-backed online crypto travel agency Travala, said that the platform experienced a steep drop in booking volumes. Otero stated that till February, Travala was seeing exponential growth with a consistent rise in booking volumes. But as the coronavirus pandemic reached crisis levels, the firm saw an 80–90% drop in total bookings within a few weeks. Recovery around the corner? However, it appears that …

Over the past four years, the United Nations International Children’s Fund has been investing in startups applying open-source technology, hoping to make the world a better place, but is looking to step up its game even further now. Cecilia Chapiro, an investment advisor at UNICEF Ventures, told Cointelegraph that UNICEF had launched its innovation fund in 2016 with the goal to support emerging technologies being built in developing countries. Since then, UNICEF has invested in over 50 startups across 35 countries. “We invest in technologies that have the potential to influence billions of people, especially children in emerging countries,” Chapiro …

USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin project founded by Coinbase and Circle, has hit a major milestone in market capitalization. On July 3, 2020, USDC market cap broke the $1 billion threshold for the first time since the stablecoin was launched in October 2018. According to data from Coin360, the coin has seen sharp growth since March 2020. USDC, the second-largest USD-pegged stablecoin after Tether (USDT), is ranked the 17th largest cryptocurrency by market cap as of press time. USD Coin all-time chart. Source: Coin360 Announcing the news on Thursday, the Centre Consortium — an organization co-founded by Circle and Coinbase …