The volume of cryptocurrency flows coming on darknet markets have doubled for the first time in four years, a new study says. In part of its 2020 Crypto Crime Report published on Jan. 28, Chainalysis — a New York-based blockchain analytics firm — found that darknet markets have significantly increased their share of total incoming crypto transactions in 2019, doubling from 0.04% in 2018 to 0.08%. Crypto on darknets is resilient to scrutiny by law enforcement According to the study, total market sales in crypto grew 70% in 2019 to account for more than $790 million worth of cryptocurrency after …

The municipality of Zermatt, Switzerland — home to the iconic Matterhorn — is now the second location in Switzerland where taxpayers are officially allowed to pay their taxes in Bitcoin (BTC). In order to unlock the new tax payment option, the authorities of the Zermatt have partnered with Switzerland’s major crypto financial services company Bitcoin Suisse. Bitcoin Suisse to convert Bitcoin into Swiss francs According to an announcement by Bitcoin Suisse, Zermatt started accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment for local taxes and transactions on Jan. 28, 2020. By partnering with Bitcoin Suisse, the authorities of Zermatt are now …

Ditto Music will launch Bluebox, a blockchain recording technology that could be a boon to musicians and distributors alike. What it’s all about The problem, says Ditto Music CEO Lee Parsons, is that misplaced metadata can end up eating away at the bottom line. Recently Ditto made a royalty payment of 60,000 pounds sterling ($80,000) to the wrong artist. Parsons reportedly had to pay the correct artist out of his own pocket. But Bluebox will allow artists to address legal concerns, such as copyright registration, publishing, and mechanical splits. The app records music around legally-binding smart contracts, which are written …

Cross-border payments platform Currencycloud has raised $80 million in funding from SBI Group, Visa and other investors. Per a Jan. 27 press release, London-based Currencycloud secured $80 million from SBI Group, Visa, International Finance Corporation, BNP Paribas and Siam Commercial Bank. Following the investment, Colleen Ostrowski, senior vice president and treasurer of Visa Inc, will join the board of Currencycloud. By its own account, the startup — which provides embedded B2B cross-border payments — is going to allocate the raised funds for its further growth, expansion of its portfolio of emerging payment methods and development of its partner ecosystem. Currencycloud …

The biggest topic in the mobile industry over the last few years has been 5G. In an industry that has been starved for innovation in this interregnum between the launch of the iPhone and the full-scale integration of next-generation technologies like augmented reality, artificial intelligence and blockchain, the introduction of the 5G network has become a sort of catch-all for carriers and handset manufacturers to lean on as the promise of the future of innovation being just around the corner — a feature worth paying a premium for and upgrading that smartphone you bought just a year or two ago. …

The United Kingdom’s legendary Lancashire Cricket Club will sell tickets for all domestic and international fixtures at Emirates Old Trafford in 2020 through a blockchain-based platform. In a news release on Jan. 24, the club revealed that it will use a blockchain-powered mobile tickets platform dubbed TIXnGO. The platform has been jointly developed with Lancashire’s ticketing service provider, SecuTis, and was successfully tested during the 2019 season. Eliminating fake tickets By deploying the platform, the club intends to eliminate fake tickets and track ticket distribution among their supporters. Lancashire’s head of ticketing and digital systems, Jonathon Nuttall, claimed that the …

Travala, a service that lets its users pay for hotel stays with digital currency, has expanded its crypto payment options by adding support of NEM (XEM) tokens. The NEM Foundation and Travala.com announced the integration of XEM with the travel company’s platform, according to a blog post published by Travala on Jan. 22. As such, XEM joined over 20 other digital currencies supported by Travala’s platform, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tron (TRX), stablecoin Tether (USDT), privacy-focused token Monero (XMR) and others. Boost in revenue The move comes in the wake of Travala’s announcement that it began accepting USDT as …

Adult entertainment website Pornhub has added a new cryptocurrency payment option after PayPal had abruptly stopped servicing its models in late 2019. According to a Jan. 23 blog post, Pornhub now supports Tether (USDT) — a major United States dollar-pegged stablecoin — to allow instant and zero-fee payments via the crypto wallet and browser extension TronLink. Pornhub supports Tron-based USDT TronLink is a native wallet for Tron (TRX), the 12th largest cryptocurrency by market cap that is backed by the Tron Foundation. The USDT token became available on the Tron network after Tether and the Tron Foundation partnered and released …

Financial services and mobile payment company Square thinks it has found a way to turn fiat into crypto in real-time point-of-sale transactions. How it works On Jan. 21, the United States Patent Office awarded Square a patent for a technology that the team argues cracks a present barrier in merchant transactions: “All cryptocurrencies face the same drawback in that they are not widely accepted. Presently, cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, are not accepted by most retail merchants, or even by most online merchants.” The team cited a number of drawbacks to current crypto spending. Transactions take a while to process. Minor advances …

It’s funny what business leaders can and can’t tell the press. Cointelegraph caught up with Alexander Drummond, co-founder of crypto-enabled payments company GatePay, at the 50th edition of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week. Drummond was one of several crypto entrepreneurs presenting his company on stage at the CV Labs event on Tuesday. Drummond’s pitch for GatePay goes something like this: retail customers should be able to pay for products with any means of exchange they want, and retail stores should be able to handle it. Offering checkout support for different credit cards and popular cryptocurrencies, GatePay …

Hong Kong and Thailand’s central banks have stepped closer to implementing a joint central bank digital currency (CBDC) for cross-border payments. On Jan. 22, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) officially announced the outcomes of a joint CBDC research project called Project Inthanon-LionRock. Alongside publishing a joint press release, the banks have issued a detailed 90-page report providing an exhaustive analysis of the potential risks and benefits of CBDCs for real-time money transfers, liquidity management, regulatory compliance, and other aspects of finance. Inthanon-LionRock project was initiated in May 2019 After the HKMA and the …

BitPay, a leading provider of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services, announced on Jan. 21 the launch of XRP payments and cross-border transfers. BitPay has also added support for XRP — the cryptocurrency used by Ripple’s payment network — to the BitPay Wallet app. Although rumors were circulating on Jan. 20 across Twitter and Reddit that BitPay had added support for XRP, the company officially confirmed its work with Ripple’s developer platform Xpring to complete the integration. According to BitPay’s CMO, Bill Zielke, BitPay merchants around the world are now able to accept XRP without any additional integrations required. Zielke said: …