Ethereum Name Service adds fiat payments for ENS domain registrations
Ethereum Name Service has integrated fiat payment options for new decentralized domain registrations in a new partnership with MoonPay.
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FTX resumes employee and contractor payments after weeks in limbo
Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has announced it will be “resuming ordinary” cash payments, salaries and benefits to its remaining employees around the world.The announcement came from new FTX CEO John Ray III on Nov. 28, as the insolvency professional looks to help FTX and its approximated 101 affiliated companies (FTX Debtors) navigate their way through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.”With the Court’s approval of our First Day motions and the work being done on global cash management, I am pleased that the FTX group is resuming ordinary course cash payments of salaries and benefits to our remaining employees around the world.”“FTX also is making cash payments to selected non-U.S. vendors and service providers where necessary to preserve business operations, subject to the limits approved by the Bankruptcy Court,” he added.The announcement comes around 10 days after FTX debtors filed a motion to pay prepetition compensation and benefits to employees and contractors in the Delaware bankruptcy court on Nov. 19, which excludes payments to former FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried, along with Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and Caroline Ellison. Sharing our press release just issued: FTX Resumes Ordinary Course Payments of Employees and Certain Foreign Contractors https://t.co/8CDnlsvu2j— FTX (@FTX_Official) November 28, 2022The latest announcement will mean that the remaining employees and contractors of FTX will be receiving nearly three weeks’ worth of pay, which was presumably halted after the company filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11. Ray acknowledged the financial hardship imposed on FTX employees and foreign contractors with the payment delay and thanked them for their support. “We recognize the hardship imposed by the temporary interruption in these payments and thank all of our valuable employees and partners for their support.”The relief will include cash payments owed to workers at FTX Trading and 101 other affiliated companies since the Nov. 11 bankruptcy filing, in addition to the many vendors and service providers who still need to be paid out by FTX.However, the resumption of payments won’t apply to all FTX subsidiaries and related companies.In The Bahamas, where the crypto exchange is headquartered, only employees and contractors of the FTX Debtors will receive relief, but not those who worked for FTX Digital Markets, which is subject to a separate liquidation proceeding in The Bahamas.It also won’t apply to Australia-based employees and contractors for FTX Australia and its subsidiary FTX Express, which are also subject to separate proceedings in Australia.Related: US House committee sets Dec. 13 date for FTX hearingOn Nov. 22, FTX Trading announced it had been granted interim and final approvals for all of the “First Day” motions for matters related to its bankruptcy filing on Nov. 11.At the time, Ray said he expected the motions to fast-track FTX Debtor’s efforts to reimburse other stakeholders affected by the trading platform’s collapse, such as FTX users and creditors, with the new CEO suggesting that a potential buyout of FTX’s assets could benefit stakeholders sooner rather than later.However, some insolvency lawyers warn that the process could take years, or even decades, given the complexity and scope of FTX’s collapse. Insolvency lawyer Stephen Earel, partner at Co Cordis in Australia recently told Cointelegraph that it’ll take the courts several years, if not decades, to determine who owned what crypto assets before coming up with a plan to redistribute those funds.FTX Trading alone owes its top 50 creditors $3.1 billion, according to a document submitted as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
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Crypto.com rolls out Google Pay integration as Big Tech continues to embrace crypto
Global cryptocurrency wallet and exchange platform Crypto.com added Google Pay as a payment option for Android users to buy cryptocurrencies on Thursday. Google Pay is estimated to have over 100 million users who could make use of the latest payment gateway to cryptocurrency markets.Users that have set up their Google Pay accounts to be linked with a credit or debit card will be able to choose the payment option when on the Crypto.com app. The exchange lists over 250 cryptocurrencies accessible to some 50 million users worldwide.Crypto.com has been in the headlines in recent months as the company acquired licenses to operate in a handful of countries in quick succession. Italy is the latest country to give the firm the green light to begin serving customers within its borders, following regulatory approval in Greece, Singapore and Dubai.The integration of major payment systems into cryptocurrency wallet and exchange platforms has picked up pace over the past two years. Google Pay indicated its intent further explore the cryptocurrency space in January 2022 with the appointment of former PayPal executive Arnold Goldberg to head up their payments division.This came after an eventful 2021 for Google Pay and the cryptocurrency space, which saw integration with Gemini in April offer the same functionality Crypto.com has now introduced. A partnership with Coinbase in June 2021 allowed users to pay for goods and services through Google Pay using their Coinbase Card. Google Pay also joined forces with Bakkt in October 2021, while Nexo announced Google Pay integration with the launch of its cryptocurrency-backed Mastercard cards in April 2022.
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Shopify Bitcoin payments integration triggers legal questions from the community
Following the announced integration of the payment app Strike with e-commerce platform Shopify to accept Bitcoin (BTC) through the Lightning Network, the crypto community raised concerns over the legal implications of the move. Crypto researcher Matt Ahlborg believes that the event is a very significant development for BTC as it allows the offloading of BTC without the need to go through the know-your-customer (KYC) process. What Jack Mallers is really saying is that you will be soon be able to offload your Bitcoins in the real world without KYC’ing through an exchange first.If this is true, it is actually an extremely substantive and important development for Bitcoin.— Matt Ahlborg (@MattAhlborg) April 7, 2022However, lawyer Kevin Thompson pointed out in a reply that the event is likely to make regulators frustrated. Being able to spend BTC without going through KYC enables users to dump BTC and avoid taxes according to Thompson. He predicts that regulators may respond to the event by “creating reporting requirements for Shopify.” Glennhodl, a Twitter user, also thinks that the government may take steps to address the issue of offloading BTC in major stores without doing KYC. However, he notes that while regulators can try to fight it, they won’t be able to really stop it. Not to shit on the parade but…I’d be absolutely stunned if the US govt. just accepts you walking into any major store and spending #bitcoin KYC-free.Ultimately they can’t stop it, but I’m pretty sure they’re gonna fight it.The King’s gambit is the perfect metaphor.— Glenn ‘$100k in May’ Hodl (@glennhodl) April 8, 2022
David Hood suggests not taxing low-value transactions. In a tweet, he commended the recent development but also explained that more people would “take advantage” of the integration if there are no taxes on the BTC purchases under $600.Related: Singaporean fintech adds Bitcoin payments for merchants with BitPay partnershipBack in February, e-commerce giant eBay also hinted at the integration of crypto payments with its platform. In an interview, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said that the company is eyeing different payment methods as they process billions of dollars in volume within their platform.Meanwhile, the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) recently launched a program that enables employees within participating companies to get paid in BTC. Through a Bitcoin Savings Plan, employees have the option to take a part of their pay in BTC without paying any transaction costs.
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What is Solana (SOL) Pay, and how does it work?
PayPal was a massive innovation in the payments processing industry. The financial brainchild of Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and eventually, Elon Musk aimed far ahead of its time, facilitating instant payments between customers, businesses and more while utilizing the internet.Solana (SOL) Pay is considered by many to be the next innovation in the payments processing arena, facilitating payments while taking nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and Web3 into account. Some are going so far as to call Solana’s new payment protocol the Visa or PayPal of Web3. This post will break down Solana Pay and how it works so you can decide whether the project is all it’s cracked up to be.But first, it’s vital to understand Solana before getting into the digital payment platform Solana Pay.Related: What is Web3: A beginner’s guide to the decentralized internet of the futureWhat is Solana?Solana was founded in 2017 by Anatoly Yakovenko, a software engineer with a background at Dropbox and other big tech companies. Yakovenko believed that while other blockchains are efficient or at least working toward efficiency, many of them fail to factor in time. Instead of every block relying on a standardized clock, each block runs on the local time of their relevant node. Why is this a problem? Without a standardized clock, transaction timestamps will vary for each block and the time of confirmation is yet another factor that all nodes must validate. The more factors a node has to validate, the slower the transaction time.On Solana, all nodes run on the same clock, removing one validation factor and speeding up the network as a result. Yakovenko refers to this consensus method as proof-of-history (PoH) — a modified version of proof-of-stake (PoS) that factors in time for verification purposes. Validation works similar to proof-of-stake in Solana’s case. Solana is just using time as a historical record of proof on top of the proof-of-stake method. As a result, Solana can process an average of 65,000 transactions per second with minimal fees. Solana is also a smart contract decentralized finance (DeFi) platform competing with Ethereum (ETH). Both platforms offer all sorts of decentralized finance DApps, some with their cryptocurrencies as well. Instead of Ether at the center of it all, the Solana token is SOL.SOL is used to transact within the Solana network, to stake for governance purposes and is given as a reward to validators. Otherwise, Solana has its own decentralized exchanges to trade the various tokens built on top of its platform. Every DApp built on Solana is sure to have its own SOL-compatible token, and on-chain decentralized exchanges provide an accessible way to buy said tokens Now, because Solana’s PoH consensus allows it to process tens of thousands of transactions per second without fees, Solana Labs is building Solana Pay to provide that transaction power to the masses.History of Solana PayWhile Solana Labs were a big part of the Solana Pay development process, other companies were involved as well. According to Shere, Circle, Checkout.com, Citcon, Phantom, FTX and Slope all played a part in establishing the foundation for the digital payment platform Solana Pay. Team Circle states that “73% of businesses believe accepting digital payments is fundamental to growth in 2022,” according to a study by Visa. That same study revealed that 59% of those businesses “already are, or plan to, use only digital payments within the next two years.” These statistics were part of the foundation for Solana Pay, as Solana Labs, Circle and their other partners want to be ready for these early adopters. Shere joined Solare Labs in 2021 to work on Solana Pay.How does Solana Pay work?Digital payment platform Solana Pay offers businesses and customers immediate, fee-free transactions that allegedly have zero effect on the environment by harnessing the power of the Solana blockchain network. The network claims to support 65,000 transactions per second and provides an easy-to-implement software development kit for businesses to integrate the product.Developers building DApps on Solana can integrate Solana Pay for easy transactions, just as traditional retailers can implement it if they have a Solana wallet. That accessibility is why many compare Solana to PayPal, stating that Solana can do for crypto payments what PayPal did for traditional online payments.Related: What is Solana (SOL) and How Does it Work?Advantages of Solana PayOf course, Bitcoin (BTC), ETH and other cryptocurrencies claim to provide a near-instant crypto payment, but these networks (especially Ethereum) are costly and not as instant as they might claim. For instance, Bitcoin features an average of seven transactions per second, while Ethereum averages thirteen transactions per second. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are harmful to the environment as well. Solana’s network is faster and cheaper, which is attractive to businesses and customers. Solana Pay allows its users to pay in real-time in SOL or any other supported Solana token, such as real-time payments in USD Coin (USDC), without involving a third-party such as a bank or payments processor. Moreover, Solana Pay doesn’t allow for chargebacks, removing a costly issue that traditional merchants often face. Also ideal for merchants, Solana Pay offers detailed reports on every transaction such as wallet destination, currency type, the transaction amount and text fields for the merchant to describe the said transaction. These details are kept entirely private from the rest of the network, ensuring that both the customer and the merchant can transact without prying eyes.As the head of payments at Solana Labs, Sheraz Shere, states in his blog post announcing Solana Pay, the Solana team wants the world to look at Solana Pay as something bigger than allowing users to “pay with crypto.” Instead, Shere views Solana Pay as a platform where “all currencies are on-chain and used for a wide range of transactions,” he says.Disadvantages of Solana PaySolana Pay, alongside the Solana network, itself, is in an early stage of development. Businesses who switch over to Solana Pay run the risk of losing their assets due to a programming error or attack on the network, for instance. It’s possible to lose assets due to basic user errors if the business isn’t crypto-knowledgeable, as managing a crypto wallet doesn’t come naturally to everyone.Also, while Solana is faster than many of its competitors, Ethereum is still a much bigger platform overall. Ethereum has many more DApps and a larger user base than Solana, and Ethereum’s eventual move to Ethereum 2.0 could prove problematic for Solana as well.Solana Pay for merchantsWhile Solana Pay might sound complex, integration for merchants is pretty simple. To start, a merchant must establish a Solana wallet, which they can do individually or through the FTX exchange. From there, the merchant must implement some Solana Pay code into their website and encode their subsequent crypto payment request link into a QR code. Now, customers can pay for goods and services both digitally and in person by simply scanning a QR code within their SOL-supported wallet. Solana Pay for developersWhile Solana Pay has its base use case in offering merchants a way to accept crypto easily, the Solana community can propose changes and present new use cases. Solana Pay’s documentation invites users to open up a Github issue if they want to propose changes and updates. In his blog post regarding Solana Pay, Shere notes that Solana Pay could facilitate physical and digital transactions via NFTs. His example revolves around buying a pair of shoes. A customer might buy a pair of shoes using Solana Pay, and walk out of the store with two NFTs. The first NFT allows her to use those shoes in the metaverse, and the second is a receipt for her purchase. That receipt doubles as entry into the retailer’s exclusive club of NFT holders that receive discounts and other bonuses from the retailer.Wallets that support Solana PaySolana Pay is currently supported in three wallets: Phantom, Crypto Please and FTX. Phantom is a Solana-only wallet for buying, holding, and swapping crypto and NFTs. Crypto Please is another Solana-focused wallet enabling users to send crypto over Telegram, Whatsapp and more. Finally, FTX is an exchange that supports all types of cryptocurrencies including Solana. More wallets that support Solana Pay are coming soon.
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Global council adds DeFi banking firm Scallop to help secure payment data
A council formed by traditional finance conglomerates American Express, Discover, Visa and Mastercard welcomes a decentralized finance (DeFi) banking firm to its participating organizations that help improve payment data security worldwide.Scallop, a regulated DeFi banking app recently announced its entry to the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), a global community with a goal to improve payment data security worldwide. According to the DeFi firm, it will be working with the PCI SSC by assisting in the ongoing development and adoption of the PCI Security Standards.Lance Johnson, PCI SSC Executive Director says that Scallop is doing its part in “improving payment security globally” as they help create awareness and drive the adoption of the PCI Security Standards, a global standard for payment security administered by the PCI SSC.“In an era of increasingly sophisticated attacks on systems, PCI Security Standards and resources help organizations secure payment data and prevent, detect and mitigate attacks that can lead to costly data breaches.”As a participant, the DeFi banking project will be joining 800 other organizations in helping secure payment data worldwide by contributing DeFi-industry insights and recommending initiatives for the council. The firm will also be taking part in council meetings and sharing cross-sector experiences.Related: Coinbase proposes crypto tech to promote global sanctions complianceIn another cross-over instance of traditional finance and blockchain-based payments, multinational e-commerce corporation eBay recently announced that the marketplace may add crypto payments soon. In an interview, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone mentioned that the company is looking into new payment methods.Meanwhile, according to a digital asset banking executive, a clearer regulatory environment may spur crypto adoption from more institutions. In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, SEBA Bank executive Christian Borel said that institutional investors need regulated partners so that they could operate securely. This means that as rules become more clear, institutions may begin putting more money into the crypto sector.
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