The BioMedWire Podcast

Jonathan Keim, communications director of CryptoCurrencyWire, appeared with his usual weekly news update on this episode of the Wild West Crypto Show. 

First up in Keim’s update was the news that the Crypto.com Visa card program received a green light in Canada (http://ccw.fm/PI0oq). Crypto.com started life as Monaco, a company offering a cryptocurrency-funded Visa debit card. Now, after a rebranding, the company will be known as the Crypto.com MCO platform and will offer the MCO Visa card, which links Visa cards with cryptocurrency accounts. The integration allows users to easily spend their cryptocurrency on everyday purchases, wherever Visa is accepted – and Visa is everywhere. The card network is the largest in the world, with more than 40 million merchants and 336 million cardholders.

Next up, Keim shared the news release ‘Huobi Rebrands Its Derivatives Exchange as Crypto Derivatives Surge in Popularity’ (http://ccw.fm/UZ7Fg). Headquartered in Singapore, Huobi is a cryptocurrency exchange that has been offering a variety of derivative products. The rebranding has been prompted by increased interest in crypto-derivative products such as futures, forwards, swaps and options, from both large institutional and smaller retail investors. Now called Huobi Futures, the exchange’s coin-margined, perpetual contracts have experienced a surge in trading since their launch in late March, already topping the market in cumulative trading volume. On May 12, the total 24-hour, coin-margin perpetual trading volume on Huobi Futures rose above $5.46 billion, outperforming by far the exchange’s closest competitor.

Keim completed his round-up with the headline ‘World’s Leading Crypto Payments Processor CoinPayments Announces Strategic Partnership with Shopify’ (http://ccw.fm/Dt066). This collaboration, much like the MCO Visa card project, has the potential to markedly increase adoption of cryptocurrencies.

“Under the terms of the partnership, CoinPayments will now be a visible payment option for merchants on the Shopify platform and will make cryptocurrency transactions easier and more accessible while reducing transaction fees,” the announcement stated. “Vendors will now get paid faster in any of the 1,800 cryptocurrencies supported by CoinPayments while gaining access to untapped markets globally. This partnership further enables cross-border payments, allowing merchants to eliminate the hassle of working with multiple payment processors across different jurisdictions.”

For the latest episode, which includes CryptoCurrencyWire’s ongoing segment featuring the latest news from around the world, visit http://ccw.fm/t3ozS