Chiliz.net and Socios.com, a major industry tandem specializing in blockchain-based fan tokens, are rolling out their Visa debit card. As officially announced on Aug. 14, the Socios.com Visa debit card allows global fans to “be more than a fan” — earn fan tokens-powered financial rewards and club-related benefits from making purchases through the card. Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO at Chiliz and Socios, told Cointelegraph that the new debit card is now being tested by a limited pool of users. According to the executive, the Socios.com visa debit Card will roll out for mainstream users in early Q3 2020. According to the …

Despite regulators across the board giving a cold shoulder to Facebook’s ambitious plan to install a worldwide crypto-based payment system called Libra, the company’s enthusiasm for moving into the digital payments space is only mounting. Earlier this week, reports emerged that the social media hegemon has realigned its forces on this front, arranging all its payments-related subsidiaries into a single group called Facebook Financial. David Marcus, co-creator of Libra and head of the Novi (formerly Calibra) project, will take command of the new division while continuing to directly oversee the crypto effort. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also tapped former Upwork …

Gamified shopping loyalty platform StormX will now let its users earn cashback in cryptocurrencies when shopping at Walmart. According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on August 14, StormX users can now earn up to 4% cashback in crypto for purchases made at Walmart. Users who achieve a “Diamond” rank can earn up to 14%. StormX CEO Simon Yu said that he believes this Walmart partnership will bring new users to the service: “As the only crypto cashback program for Walmart worldwide, we are confident that users will take advantage of the rewards program to earn their favorite cryptocurrency while …

Santander, the large scale Spanish bank and one of Ripple’s major partners, is still hesitant to adopt XRP as part of its international payment network, One Pay FX. The company reasoned that the token “was not actively traded in enough markets” to support the company’s banking needs. During an interview with the Financial Times, Cedric Menager, chief executive officer of One Pay FX, explained that Santander wants to provide the “best [user experience] as quickly as possible.” He also said that the bank hopes to “operate in as many currencies and corridors as possible from the beginning.” Ripple clarified that …

The much-debated blockchain firm Ripple is now planning to expand its use case far beyond just streamlining cross-border payments in partnership with national and international banks. Ripple had focused its efforts solely on cross-border payments for the past five years when Brad Garlinhouse joined the company as the chief executive officer. Despite their unprecedented success as a software solution provider to financial entities, Ripple has seemingly come to a realization that the company’s core value still lies in the associated cryptocurrency XRP and the Ripple blockchain. While the company had mostly worked with banks and directly funded millions to blockchain …

Satoshi Nakamoto years ago envisioned an ecosystem that would be independent of the centralized financial system that dominates the global economy today. His creation sparked a global community of enthusiasts and an entire industry surrounding blockchain — the solution enabling individuals to turn their money away from centralized legacy institutions and toward transacting on a decentralized, distributed ledger. The ultimate goal was a world in which people could pay for goods and services with these novel financial instruments. Many payment companies and exchanges already claim to offer services that enable crypto users to buy goods and services with cryptocurrency. Upon …

Crypto cards have become a must-have for many crypto services. Hoping to reduce the risk of blocking transactions, companies have been looking again and again for reason why their customers should use “plastic.” But a crypto card is a placebo that does not solve the problems of either users or fintech companies — its only goal is to bring profit to payment systems and intermediaries. Crypto cards are not needed in the same way that special financial instruments are not needed to buy gold, oil, precious metals or any other resource. The word “cryptocurrency” — like “dollar” or “euro” — …

Online travel booking platform Travala.com has added one million new homes across 195 countries to its site with the release of a designated home bookings section called ‘Homes’. Holiday homes and apartments can be booked with over 30 different cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), and Travala.com’s native coin AVA. Travala.com’s new Homes booking section. Source: Travala.com The Travala Blog announced that the addition of Homes “marks Travala.com’s entry into one of the fastest growing verticals of the travel industry.” In Booking Holdings’ first quarter earnings call, execs revealed that there is a trend towards domestic bookings …

Coinbase Wallet, a service of the largest crypto exchange in the United States, now supports “.crypto” domains via an integration with blockchain domain provider Unstoppable Domains. Coinbase users can now send payments to each other by simply typing a .crypto domain instead of using long-form cryptographic addresses, Unstoppable Domains told Cointelegraph on Aug. 5. By introducing the new integration, Coinbase Wallet joins major crypto exchange Huobi, which announced a similar feature in late June. Brad Kam, co-founder of Unstoppable Domains, says that Coinbase Wallet is the first platform to offer an “all in one solution” for all cryptocurrencies offered by …

The People’s Bank of China is purportedly planning to use its digital currency electronic system (DCEP) — another moniker for its central bank digital currency — to target the dominance of technology giants like Alibaba and Tencent in the digital payments sector. The report comes only a few days after claims of the central bank prompting a top antitrust agency to launch a probe against Alipay and WeChat Pay for using their dominance to suppress competition. According to the Financial Times, even regulators and executives of Alibaba’s financial group Ant agreed that PBoC will target the market dominance of Alipay …

The Russian Federation has banned anonymous deposits to online wallets in a move that will affect 10 million users across the country. According to lawmakers, this initiative is supposed to curb illegal activity, such as the financing of terrorism and the illegal drug trade. 10M anonymous wallets are affected Online wallets through services such as Yandex, WebMoney, PayPal, and Kiwi are very popular in Russia. These services maintain approximately 10 million users who use the accounts anonymously by topping them up with cash. Some people use these anonymous wallets to purchase cryptocurrency, although the exact numbers are unknown. Experts say …

Travala.com has recently added an additional 600,000 hotels to its crypto-powered online travel platform thanks to a recent partnership with booking giant, Agoda. Travala’s CEO, Juan Otero, told Cointelegraph that the number of properties on the platform has now reached over 2.2 million in total. He claimed: “We can safely say we are the world's largest blockchain-based online travel agency by number of accommodation options available with over 2,200,000 options to book covering 90,124 destinations.” Agoda is a travel industry giant that — according to company data website Owler — employs over 4,300 people and has a yearly revenue of …