Sentiment in China has slumped as WeChat searches for Bitcoin dropped 7% this week, while searches for “bear market” spiked 102%. One trend that remained strong was NFT-related, with NFTs receiving an 86% increase in WeChat searches over the seven-day period. Token sales were another hot item with interest in Casper Labs surging after signups on CoinList breached 100,000 on global platforms. One high-profile token sale to emerge from China was DAO-as-a-Service platform Dora Factory. The project, backed by DoraHacks, held a public token launch on March 21 with listings on OKEx, Gate and MXC. DoraHacks is well-known for hosting …

Hermez Network has announced on Wednesday the launch of its zk-rollup mainnet release. This means that the network is now open for users, who can benefit from the rollup’s much lower transaction costs than Ethereum. Zk-rollups use zero knowledge proofs to verify the correctness of a large batch of transactions. An outside ecosystem executes these transactions and generates proofs for them, which are then posted directly on the Ethereum blockchain. The result is a saving of over 10x in terms of block space, with Hermez transactions weighing just 10 bytes on the main chain, compared to more than 100 bytes …

Chinese authorities are willing to ensure maximum user privacy for the country’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, according to an official at the People’s Bank of China. Mu Changchun, head of the People’s Bank of China’s digital currency research institute, spoke of China’s digital yuan privacy capabilities at the 2021 China Development Forum on Sunday, local news agency Sina Finance reported. Mu stated that a completely anonymous CBDC “is not feasible” because a national digital currency must meet requirements related to Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorist Financing and anti-tax evasion. However, that doesn’t mean that China’s digital yuan lacks user privacy, …

Tech giant Microsoft seems to be considering introducing Bitcoin (BTC) payments to its Xbox gaming console online store. According to a Sunday Reddit post on r/XboxSeriesX, Microsoft has put out a survey asking Xbox users about their preferred payment options at its online store. “Which of these other payment methods would you like to use on Xbox?,” the purported survey asks, listing Bitcoin as one of the potential payment methods. The same photo has also been circulating across several other subreddits including r/Ethtrader and r/Bitcoin. Microsoft is now asking Xbox users about #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/TjuY18L5Wh — Documenting Bitcoin (@DocumentingBTC) March 21, …

Binance has released its payments app, Binance Pay, in public alpha. The app is a contactless peer-to-peer cryptocurrency payment feature that lets users send and receive payments in cryptos like Bitcoin (BTC). Binance initially rolled out Binance Pay in a soft launch in February 2020 for P2P payments, enabling 250,000 users to interact with the product. Today, Binance Pay is launching in alpha with new features like merchant-based transactions and is available to all users. A spokesperson for Binance told Cointelegraph that the new service is not limited to certain jurisdictions and is “currently available to all eligible users on …

Payments giant PayPal has acquired Israel-based digital asset security firm Curv for an undisclosed amount. According to PayPal, the firm purchased Curv as part of its initiative to support cryptocurrencies and digital assets. The platform said it plans to complete the acquisition before the third quarter of 2021, but did not disclose the purchase amount. Israel-based media outlet Calcalist said last week that Curv may have sold for between $200 million and $300 million, with CNBC reporting on Monday that “The deal is worth less than $200 million.” "The acquisition of Curv is part of our effort to invest in …

After only three days accepting Dogecoin (DOGE) as a form of payment, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is predicting the price of the token will eventually hit $1. In a Saturday tweet, Cuban said customers had used more than 20,000 Dogecoin — roughly $1,018 at the time of publication — in transactions for the Dallas Mavericks, claiming the franchise was now “the largest Dogecoin merchant in the world." The billionaire predicted that if basketball fans were to purchase 6,556,000,000 DOGE worth of Mavericks merchandise, the price of the token would “definitely hit $1.” The @dallasmavs have done more than 20,000 …

As big-name payment processors like Visa and Mastercard increasingly integrate blockchain technology into their payment rails, decentralized platforms offering the best solutions to issues like scalability and fast transaction times are gaining traction. COTI is one such platform that has been gaining momentum in recent weeks after a series of network upgrades and big announcements brought extra attention to the enterprise-grade fintech platform. According to COTI’s website, the protocol focuses on empowering organizations to create their own payment solutions and digitize any form of currency as a way to save time and money. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows …

Dogecoin (DOGE), a cryptocurrency borne out of a joke, can now be used as payment for tickets and merchandise for the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. The National Basketball Association franchise confirmed Thursday that it has become the first major business to accept DOGE, allowing users to convert the digital currency to fiat using BitPay. We're proud to be the first business to accept the #crypto Dogecoin for payment using BitPay! You can now use #Dogecoin to buy tickets and merch online, making @DallasMavsShop more accessible to MFFLs everywhere! pic.twitter.com/1N0fk0NjAT — Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) March 4, 2021 The Mavericks have been …

An open-source blockchain technology project has launched a smart contract that enables atomic swaps between fiat and crypto. Nimiq says the OASIS protocol means that someone who is completely new to the world of crypto can create a self-custodial wallet and buy NIM and BTC directly from their bank account in only five minutes. No sign up or installation is required, and fees come in at just 1.25%. Support for other cryptocurrencies, including Ether and Litecoin, is set to follow in the future. The project was founded with a crystal-clear objective of making crypto easy and available for everyone — …

HGreg, a Quebec-based vehicle superstore with 30 North American locations, will begin accepting cryptocurrency payments for new or preowned vehicles this month. The auto dealer, which has locations in Quebec and Florida, is becoming one of the first large automotive groups to accept digital asset payments in its day-to-day operations. The company claims to have sold 500,000 vehicles over the past 25 years and maintains a warehouse in Miami that's stocked with over 1,000 cars. “A portion of the revenue from sales made in cryptocurrency will be kept in this format by the company,” HGreg said, indicating that it plans …

Russian oil firm Gazprom Neft's aviation subsidiary, Gazpromneft-Aero, announced Monday that it has completed a successful pilot of its blockchain-based refueling project, Smart Fuel. The new platform was implemented for more than 100 scheduled flights of Russian budget airline Smartavia, operating at Murmansk's international airport. Alongside Smartavia, the pilot involved major banks VTB and Raiffeisenbank. Dmitry Makarov, head of the Smart Fuel project, told Cointelegraph that the blockchain-based trial in Murmansk ran from September 2020 to December 2020. Following the successful pilot, Gazpromneft-Aero will continue providing its refueling payment solution to Smartavia, Makarov said. Based on the major blockchain framework …