Open-source payments network and Libra rival Celo has announced 18 finalists spanning 15 countries from its CeloCamp blockchain accelerator program hosted in partnership with digital events company Upright. The program, launched during mid-February, comprises an eight-week virtual boot-camp intended to stimulate app-building on top of the Celo blockchain prior to its launch. The teams are competing for $21,000 in prizes — with the winner receiving $10,000, the runner-up getting $5,000, and three teams chosen by public voting set to receive $2,000 each. The camp will provide the teams with mentorship from PayPal, Winklevoss Capital, a16z, and Polychain, with the program …

A survey published by research firm Visual Objects has found food and clothing purchases to be the most common use cases for cryptocurrencies. The findings highlight a significant disparity between the perceptions and reality of how cryptocurrency is used. Many who responded to the survey said the top use cases for crypto were trading and illicit activities. The survey gathered this data from 983 respondents in the United States who are “familiar with digital currency,” including over 120 who have made purchases using crypto assets. Survey predicts drugs and stocks as top use-cases for crypto 40% of respondents said that …

Vietnamese online ticketing agency Future.Travel now accepts Bitcoin (BTC) payments via the Lightning Network (LN), with funds being converted into local currency at the time of sale. To enable LN-based Bitcoin payments, Future.Travel collaborated with Canada-based tech firm Neutronpay, which will provide Future.Travel its multi-currency merchant platform, according to an April 20 announcement. With the newly integrated option, the BTC transaction processing time will ostensibly be cut down to three to four seconds in most cases. Eliminating fraud, reducing transaction processing time Overall, Future.Travel has been supporting BTC payments for over six years and recently added other cryptocurrencies like Litecoin …

After six years of service, Bitcoin-based Amazon payment facilitator, Purse.io, announced that they are closing their business. "We've made the very difficult decision to dissolve the company. We're grateful for the opportunity afforded by our supporters to build products and infrastructure for the cryptocurrency community," the company said in an April 16 statement. A company helping Bitcoin's adoption As one of the first blockchain businesses of its kind, Purse.io came into the world in 2014, offering Amazon shoppers a discount for paying with Bitcoin. The platform took parties interested in selling their Amazon gift cards and paired them with Bitcoin-wielding …

As Americans wait for COVID-19 stimulus checks, the Digital Dollar has returned to legislation in the United States that looks to extend monthly payments for the long haul. The ABCs of aid during crisis On April 16, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduced the “Automatic Boost to Communities Act,” or the ABC Act in the House of Representatives. The bill looks to extend monthly payments of $2,000, called BOOST payments, until at least next March, and further requires the development of digital dollar wallets for citizens to receive them. The bill reads: “No later than January 1, 2021, the Secretary shall …

Financial institutions all over the world are increasingly experimenting with emerging technologies like blockchain to streamline payment systems and achieve financial inclusion. In a new study, the World Bank has once again emphasized blockchain’s potential for financial inclusion. Issued by the Bank for International Settlements on April 14,the new report from the World Bank Group on “Payment aspects of financial inclusion in the fintech era” outlines a wide number of crypto and blockchain-related concepts like stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDC). In the 70-page report, the bank provided a detailed overview of selected advances in technology that are considered …

DeCurret, the exchange promoting cryptocurrency to be used as a payment method for Japan’s massive public transportation system, just restructured its capital. According to an April 10 press release by the crypto exchange, DeCurret announced that it had issued new shares worth 2.75 billion yen — approximately $25 million — in a third-party allocation of shares. The company plans to use the capital to “enhance transaction services for existing virtual currencies” and to promote the “expansion of digital currency and settlement services”. Crypto used as payment for public transportation in Japan? Though several prefectures in Japan have been under a …

Digital money transfer service, Azimo, has partnered with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), the oldest bank in Thailand, to launch an instant cross-border payments service from Europe to Thailand through Ripple’s global payments network, RippleNet. According to an announcement on April 9, the solution aims to solve the challenges of expensive and unreliable global payments. They state that through their platform, remittances from Europe to Thailand will take less than a minute to complete. Instant cross-border payments via RippleNet Historically, remittances between Europe and Thailand often take more than one whole business day to settle. Azimo on the other hand can …

Leading hardware wallet producer, Ledger, now allows online customers to pay using Crypto.com’s wallet app. According to an April 9 announcement, the firm has chosen to accept payment in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), XRP, Litecoin (LTC), and Crypto.com Coin (CRO) via Crypto.com’s application. This is not the first time that Ledger has allowed its customers to pay with crypto. They already accept Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and XRP via their crypto payment processor, Bitpay. An update on an old collaboration Back in December 2018, the two firms signed a memorandum of understanding, which was mean to allow Ledger’s customers to …

Although the world has largely come to an economic halt amid coronavirus prevention measures, crypto companies MoonPay and Wyre have seen volume numbers climb. “We've seen a huge spike in retail volume over the past few weeks,” Jack Jia, director of institutional sales for crypto payments outfit Wyre, told Cointelegraph in an April 3 email. “Initially there was a higher uptick in sell-side volume right before markets crashed. Then, we started maxing out of processing capacity 3 days in a row on the buy side, immediately following the price crash a few weeks ago,” he added. More crypto usage during …

Bitcoin SV powered social media platform Twetch has launched a feature to streamline peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. Twetch is a Twitter-like social media platform where users must make micropayments in order to post and engage with content on the platform. Content creators are directly paid for their activity through a revenue sharing system based on likes and shares. The platform is currently in private beta. Command-line style payments feature Tweet has rolled out the ability for users to send BSV to each other by entering the command-line ‘/pay’, a user’s tag, and the dollar value of the transfer into the app. …

A crypto company has launched a prepaid card that enables consumers to spend their digital assets freely. Embily can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted and boasts a daily ATM withdrawal limit of $2,500 — substantially higher than conventional bank cards. The product is available worldwide, and Embily says all funds are insured. Better still, cards are fully customizable, meaning owners get the chance to really show their personalities and make a statement. Presently, the Embily team says the card can be topped up with three types of cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ether and Tether. “Strong community coins” are also going to …