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Financial services giant Mastercard has invented a blockchain system that it believes can simplify business-to-business (B2B) transactions in a high-volume enterprise environment. That system is outlined in a series of three patent applications filed by the New York-based multinational firm in March, made public on Thursday by the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). Writing
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Cryptocurrency cards are coming to the fore. They are a hybrid between the FIAT world and a crypto wallet and aim to help the adoption of cryptocurrency by having a use as a traditional payment card, linked to a secure and offline cryptocurrency wallet, enabled via speedy blockchain transactions. The majority of these cards are designed to work with all Mastercard and Visa POS machines (point-of-sale) and are generally the new, trendy way to spend cryptocurrency via a physical card.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted MasterCard a patent for a method of increasing the speed of cryptocurrency transactions.
Published July 17, the patent explains the serious need for increasing the speed of cryptocurrency transactions based on the growing demand for the same. The document reads:
In recent times, blockchain currencies have seen increased usage over traditional fiat currencies by consumers who value anonymity and security.
The patent also outlines a key issue associated with blockchain-based cryptocurrency transactions — namely, speed.
Abra, a financial services and technology company operating an all-in-one cryptocurrency wallet and exchange app, has announced the ability to now buy bitcoin with VISA or MasterCard credit cards or debit cards from anywhere in the world. Purchases may be made on abra.com or via the Abra app.
Abra users may now buy bitcoin with VISA and MasterCard debit and credit cards.
You can now fund your wallet using VISA or Mastercard globally! Buy bitcoin with your debit or credit card on the web or directly in the Abra app: https://t.co/Z6ap7kVlaR
Real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange, and remittance network Ripple has announced the addition of Kahina Van Dyke to its leadership team as the new senior vice president of business and corporate development. The banking and technology veteran “will focus on driving new, strategic partnerships for Ripple across the global financial services industry.”
Van Dyke most notably led global teams at traditional financial institutions like Mastercard and Citibank. However, she most recently served as the leader of Facebook’s Global Financial Services team.
Furthering its interest in blockchain-based technology, MasterCard has filed a patent for a system designated to increase the speed with which blockchain nodes are being verified.
It seems the bees in the company’s crypto department have been busier than one may think. Earlier in April, MasterCard Labs, the company’s innovation section, said that they’re looking to hire 175 more staff members, including blockchain experts.
The company has now filed another blockchain-related patent, dated April 26th, for a system that would supposedly take care of a rather pressing issue.
Mastercard has their hiring eye on blockchain specialists. The massive corporation seeks to further incorporate the technology into their company and needs skilled help to do it.
Long gone are the days when “blockchain” was a term synonymous only with cryptocurrencies. Yes, it is the supporting technology for digital currencies. However, its benefits have far-reaching implications, and not just in the financial industry.
Sectors like healthcare and supply chain management can capitalize on this type of technology. Of course, its efficiency, security, and immutability do have a strong allure for the economic sector. According to Irish Tech News, Mastercard hopes to further incorporate these benefits into its corporation.
An executive confirms that Mastercard is open to the use of cryptocurrency, but there is a major catch involved.
Banks have notoriously been steadfast in their opposition to cryptocurrencies, and this is for a very good reason. The peer-to-peer economic marketplace of digital currencies is a direct threat to the current financial monopoly held by banks and other financial institutions. Which is why it was surprising when an executive at Mastercard said that the credit card issuer was open to the overall use of cryptocurrency. However, there is a major catch to this announcement.
Apple Pay on eBay:
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Increasing the layers of security associated with the most popular traditional payment methods is a something that is drastically needed. Credit cards were never designed to be used on the Internet, where they are prone to theft, chargebacks, and fraud. MasterCard, one of the world’s leading credit card issuers, is rolling out quite a few different card security measures, designed specifically for the e-commerce sector.
Make sure to read: Stampery Creates Legal Use Cases For Blockchain Technology
The way we make payments in our daily lives is slowly but surely taking on a more digital aspect. Cashless transactions are on the rise in most parts of the world, and the time has come to introduce some new payment methods. But one of the things we have to keep in mind is that security and customer data protection remain a key factor. Will facial recognition be the answer to our security problems? Mastercard sure seems to think so.
Buying and selling Bitcoin in the United States is still subject to certain limits on the amount you can purchase per week. Even though companies such as Circle (US$2,500 per week) and CoinBase (US$1,000 per week if you purchase up to US$50,000; otherwise just US$100 per week). are active companies in the US markets, there is still a lot of room for competition. Trucoin is aiming to fill that gap, as their customers can now purchase up to U$1,000 in Bitcoin on a daily basis.
During the Bitcoin Expo 2015 in London this past weekend, we had a chat with one of the Cointellect representatives regarding their cloud mining service. As I am also one of their paying customers, I managed to ask some questions to which I received fairly satisfying answers. I have written down the answers in an interview format below, for your reading pleasure.
Note from the author : We also had a drink with Daniel Fonseca, the Cointellect PR Manager. However, all of the information he disclosed was to be kept off the record, so we oblige to his request.
My attention was brought to a very new altcoin, called MidasCoin. After seeing an immense response from the mining community, and by offering an interesting mining algorithm, I do think it’s worth talking about. Care to find out more?
It doesn’t happen too often where a new cryptocurrency is introduced, and there are a lot of impressive services available at or shortly after launch. I’m not talking about third party services either, but services built by the team before launching their coin.
More announcements and surprises from one of the hottest Cryptos right now, BurnerCoin. The closed beta testing for the new BURN wallet begins today, BurnerConnect was announced, and some misconceptions have been cleared up. Let’s go, go go!
As of today, 10 lucky, hand picked beta testers are checking and using the new BurnerCoin client. This beta testing will go on for about roughly a full week, and we will keep an eye out for any further updates from the developer.
The panel for this session consists of Josh Metnick (Chicago Sun Times) , Pierre Noizat (Paymium Founder) , Todd Edelbohls (Coinbase) , Michael Gronager (COO of Payward Inc) and Radoslav Albrecht (BitBond Founder)
This Bitcoin 2014 panel will be looking at the competitive advantages provided by merchant services using Bitcoin as opposed to the traditional players in the merchant services market. Current and future innovations to put bitcoin ahead of the game will be discussed.
Josh Metnick has some experience implementing backend services in regards to Bitcoin payment integration, as he is the CTO of Chicago Sun Times.
Rumours are flying around on the internet and the Bitcoin fora about the Peck Madigan Jones firm. This firm is lobbying very hard for Bitcoin. The question that now pops up is whether this lobby firm is working to promote Bitcoin or working very hard against the use of Bitcoin?
The Peck Madigan Jones company was founded in 1987. A wide variety of notable clients that range from environmental groups to some big names in finance, such as Deloitte, Wells Fargo Securities, US Chamber of Commerce, MasterCard and many others.
The tight-lipped Bitcoin exchange, and CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index member, BTC-e is now allowing customers to withdraw funds to Visa and MasterCard debit and credit cards, with some exceptions. The company’s blog post on 21st March indicated that the new program is now available to customers in any country, using any currency. All customers will pay a 5% fee for the service.
This new functionality is noteworthy as it will allow customers to send money to debit and credit cards issued by two of the largest and most commonly used international card issuers. At present, the transfer of funds is only possible in US dollars.
