Hong Kong-based startup Prima Asia Limited said it would launch innovative blockchain payment technology in the Asia-Pacific region this year.
Prima Asia Limited plans to launch a payment technology called “Primawire” in the fourth quarter of this year. Blockchain technology will provide customers and businesses with faster transfer speeds, more secure payment solutions while reducing transaction fees by 70%.
The Chief Executive Officer of Prima Asia Limited, Jia Shaoqing, said that:
“Our company has already forged relationships with several of Asia’s largest financial institutions, and the payments prototype has been integrated and tested on their internal data networks, yielding impressive results. We will be introducing a money transfer technology that is unlike anything else on the market right now.”
Prima Asia Limited will roll out the technology now in the Asia Pacific and expects to launch the Primawire app in Europe, Africa and the Middle East by 2024, followed by North America in early 2025.
Incorporating innovative blockchain technology into the upcoming remittance solution will bring online payment independence and flexibility to its customers and allow users to combine and send various payments quickly.
Hong Kong-based startup Prima Asia Limited said it would launch innovative blockchain payment technology in the Asia-Pacific region this year.
Prima Asia Limited plans to launch a payment technology called “Primawire” in the fourth quarter of this year. Blockchain technology will provide customers and businesses with faster transfer speeds, more secure payment solutions while reducing transaction fees by 70%.
The Chief Executive Officer of Prima Asia Limited, Jia Shaoqing, said that:
“Our company has already forged relationships with several of Asia’s largest financial institutions, and the payments prototype has been integrated and tested on their internal data networks, yielding impressive results. We will be introducing a money transfer technology that is unlike anything else on the market right now.”
Prima Asia Limited will roll out the technology now in the Asia Pacific and expects to launch the Primawire app in Europe, Africa and the Middle East by 2024, followed by North America in early 2025.
Incorporating innovative blockchain technology into the upcoming remittance solution will bring online payment independence and flexibility to its customers and allow users to combine and send various payments quickly.
Citizens School, Dubai educational institution accepts Bitcoin and Ethereum payments for tuition.
Citizens School, an educational institution conceived, designed and developed in the UAE, will open in September 2022 and will accept payment of tuition fees, among other methods, in the two main cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
This move provides parents with more flexible payment methods.
The founder of Citizens School, Dr Adil Alzarooni, said:
“A while ago, cryptocurrency was only a floating term among well-versed investors. However, today cryptocurrency is becoming much more mainstream, reshaping the traditional financial system.”
Citizens School partners with a digital currency platform that processes cryptocurrency payments and automatically converts them into dirhams (AED).
Civic School chief executive Hisham Hodroge said, “introducing the ability to pay tuition fees through cryptocurrencies goes beyond just providing another payment option.”
He also added that It is also a means to further drive interest in the applications of blockchain – a technology that Citizens School intends to deploy, in time, across several aspects of its academic and administrative operations
The Wharton School, a premier business school at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, has announced plans to start soon accepting cryptocurrencies as payment for its new series of blockchain classes last October.
ConsenSys-owned crypto wallet MetaMask announced Tuesday the addition of Apple Pay integration, increasing options for buying cryptocurrencies.
MetaMask is a crypto wallet & gateway to blockchain apps. It is also a tool for interacting with decentralized applications (DAPP).
The app supports Firefox, Google Chrome, and Chromium-based browsers.
The company said it now supports iPhone or Apple Pay users to buy cryptocurrencies with debit or credit cards through the mobile app without transferring cryptocurrencies from cryptocurrency exchanges.
MetaMask uses two payment gateways, Wyre and Transak, to support transactions. Users can now buy ETH with credit cards (Visa and Mastercard) stored in Apple Pay and deposit up to $400 in their wallets through the Wyre API.
“We wanted to expand how users can convert crypto within the app itself and not have to leave it,” James Beck, Director of Communications and Content at ConsenSys, said.
The Ethereum software company ConsenSys has acquired the Ethereum interface MyCrypto last month, aiming to integrate MyCrypto with the MetaMask wallet owned by ConsenSys and improve the security of all products.
Argentinian football superstar Lionel Messi has signed a $20 million deal with crypto fan token firm Socios, according to Reuters.
Socios.com said Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) forward Messi will be involved in Socios’ promotional and promotional activities in preparation for the World Cup in Qatar.
Speaking in the statement, Messi said:
“Fans deserve to be recognised for their support. They deserve opportunities to influence the teams they love. Socios.com exists to enhance the fan experience, to enable fans to ‘be more’. I’m proud to join Socios.com’s mission to create a more connected and rewarding future for fans around the world.”
The cryptocurrency “$PSG Fan Tokens” was founded in January 2020 by an app for football (soccer) fans called Socios.com. The $PSG token is a fan token, tokenised asset representing proof of ownership or even membership. Users can acquire voting rights to influence the clubs they support by developing club-specific Fan tokens.
As reported by Blockchain.News on August 13, 2021, Lionel Messi accepted cryptocurrency PSG tokens as part of the payment after a new contract with the PSG.
WisdomTree Investments, Inc., a New York-based exchange-traded fund and exchange-traded product provider and asset manager, announced on Tuesday that it has launched three new crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) backed by Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), and Polkadot (DOT) in Europe.
The three new physically-backed cryptos ETPs include WisdomTree Solana (SOLW), WisdomTree Cardano (ADAW), and WisdomTree Polkadot (DOTW). WisdomTree said that it designed the ETPs to provide investors in Europe with another option to enable them to gain exposure to the price of Polkadot, Solana, and Cardano via regulated exchanges.
The firm disclosed that it has listed the three ETPs on major European digital exchanges, including Deutsche Boerse’s Xetra, the Swiss SIX exchange, and the Swiss Stock Exchange. WisdomTree further stated that it plans to list the crypto ETPs on the pan-European exchange Euronext to be available in Amsterdam and Paris at the end of the month.
DOTW, ADAW, and SOLW have a total expense ratio of 0.95% and are available for sale in most of the European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, WisdomTree said.
Alexis Marinof, WisdomTree’s Head of Europe, talked about the development and stated that the new offering aims to meet the rising demand from institutional investors to diversify their crypto portfolio. “While Bitcoin and Ethereum grab the headlines, altcoins are now viable options for many institutional investors, providing more options to diversify their crypto holdings just like they would with any other asset class,” Marinof elaborated.
Supporting Investors on Their Journey into Digital Assets
Listing crypto ETPs on stock exchanges has continued to open up more access points for investors to conveniently trade cryptocurrencies. Since WisdomTree launched its digital assets platform in 2019, the company has witnessed a lot of development in the space. The continued product launch represents the growing acceptance of crypto, the evolving European regulatory landscape, and demonstrates that digital assets are here to stay.
In November last year, WisdomTree launched three crypto basket exchange-traded products in Europe. The firm listed the three crypto ETPs (the WisdomTree Crypto Market (BLOC), WisdomTree Crypto Altcoins (WALT), and WisdomTree Crypto Mega Cap Equal Weight (MEGA) on Swiss stock exchange SIX and Frankfurt-based Börse Xetra.
BLOC offers exposure to the most established crypto assets such as Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. WALT is focused on altcoins such as Cardano, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Polkadot, and Solana. MEGA focuses solely on Bitcoin and Ether as the market’s two “mega-cap” assets.
The funds are passported for sale across 12 European Union countries plus Switzerland and Norway.
In June last year, WisdomTree listed its physically-backed Bitcoin and Ether ETPs on Euronext exchanges in Paris and Amsterdam. The move came after the firm listed such products on Germany’s Börse Xetra and SIX, the Swiss Stock Exchange.
MacroStrategy, a subsidiary of MicroStrategy, a US business software firm, announced Tuesday that it secured a $205 million term loan from Silvergate Bank, a crypto-focused bank.
The loan was offered through the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) Leverage program, which issues U.S. dollar loans using Bitcoin as collateral.
The interest-only loan was secured by a certain portion of Bitcoin held in MacroStrategy’s collateral account, with a custodian mutually agreed upon by MacroStrategy and Silvergate.
Based on the agreement terms, MacroStrategy will use the loan proceeds to buy Bitcoin; pay fees, interest, and expenses related to the loan transaction, or to use it for general corporate purposes, the firm revealed.
Michael Saylor, Chairman and CEO of MicroStrategy, talked about the announcement and said: “The SEN Leverage loan gives us an opportunity to further our position as the leading public company investor in Bitcoin. Using the capital from the loan, we’ve effectively turned our bitcoin into productive collateral, which allows us to further execute against our business strategy.”
Bitcoin as Investment
Early this year, MicroStrategy stated that it will continue purchasing Bitcoin despite bearish market conditions. In January, Phong Le, the Chief Financial Officer at MicroStrategy, mentioned that the firm is unfazed by the Bitcoin plunge as the company’s approach is to buy and hold cryptocurrency. The company’s strategy with Bitcoin has been to purchase and hold. So, to the extent the firm has excess cash flows or finds other ways to raise money, it continues to put it into Bitcoin, Le stated.
In the past year, MicroStrategy has become well-known on Wall Street after the Virginia-based firm began to purchase and hold Bitcoin. Initially, the company used the cash on its balance sheet to acquire the crypto before turning to the debt market to make more purchases.
As of June 30, last year, MicroStrategy held a total of 105,085 Bitcoins at an aggregate cost of $2.7 billion. That Bitcoin amount was valued at around $4 billion, based trading price of around $39,000 during that time.
Retail investors with a capital base of at most HK$8 million (US$1 million) will soon be able to gain exposure to a crypto-based Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) product as the Huobi Tech asset management firm has reportedly filed for such a product with the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).
Huobi Tech, an independent asset manager with no affiliation with the cryptocurrency trading outfit, Huobi Global, is riding on the recent allowance granted by Hong Kong authorities to extend the accessibility to regulated crypto ETF products beyond the reach of only professional traders or investors.
To get “all the trading and redemption done directly in Hong Kong … would give better protection to investors, as the fund will be regulated under Hong Kong law,” said Huobi Tech’s senior vice-president Romeo Wang, without commenting on Huobi’s application. “We will keep close and positive communications with regulators including the SFC” to “obtain the proper licences and approvals.”
The demand for related crypto products is growing at a fast pace the world over. The permission by the Hong Kong authorities to permit the trading of these unique ETF products is a sign that the government’s focus is essentially on powering the growth of these developing asset classes across the board.
Cryptocurrencies are still considered relatively volatile and risky as an investment asset. Many regulators, including the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), have not approved a full-fledged spot Bitcoin ETF product, with a slew of rejections.
Even though ProShares and VanEck are actively managing Bitcoin futures-based ETF as approved by the SEC, the more conservative investors are still awaiting a full-fledged Bitcoin or spot crypto ETF, a milestone that the SFC has proven to be well ahead of the US regulator per its recent disposition.
