Visa Acquires Ripple Partner Earthport

The American payment services giant Visa has recently announced that it is acquiring one of Ripple’s Partner Earthport Plc.

The said company is a cross-border transactions payment network for banks and financial institutions.

The company is headquartered in London and was founded in 1997.

It is one of the companies in partnership with Ripple with the primary aim at integrating the Ripple protocol into the firm’s existing payment network to improve international transactions.

The acquisition is valued at around $251 million USD or $.0.38 per each Earthport share, which is around four times the Stock’s Monday closing price. Earthport’s shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange’s secondary market and has experience market slumped of around 28 percent this year due to growing losses and expenses.

Earthport launched a single application programming interface (API) back in 2016 which will enable banks to connect to Ripple’s distributed ledger protocol.

The said protocol will enable banks to overcome budgetary, technology and compliance constraints when processing cross-border payments.

This recent acquisition seems to be in line with Visa’s current strategy of beefing up its cross-border payments capabilities with a planned launch of a blockchain-based digital identity system dubbed as Visa B2B Connect slated in the first quarter of 2019.

Samsung Set To Acquire UK Trademark For Crypto Wallet

It has been revealed through a filing with the U.K. Intellectual Property Office that the South Korean electronics giant Samsung is seeking a trademarks for its upcoming product offering.

Reports have indicated that there were three European Trademark applications related to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies software.

This seems to confirm earlier reports that it is planning to include cryptocurrency wallet capabilities on its flagship phone the Galaxy S10 Smartphone.

Samsung have refuted these reports and denied any initiatives in doing so.

However, the current filings seems to point to another direction which is not surprising given the fact that cryptocurrencies are slowly going mainstream and other competitors in the space have officially announced supporting the emerging technology.

HTC has announced earlier this month that it will be integrating the decentralized browser Brave on the HTC Exodus 1 phone.

It seems the Smartphone industry is the latest sector the nascent industry is set to disrupt with company giants Samsung and HTC starting their foray in the crypto sector.

A new comer, SIRIN labs, a blockchain-focused electronics supplier has launched its first blockchain-based smartphone dubbed as Finney.

The phone supports both Android OS and its custom-built open-source operating system SIRIN OS. Finney supports cold wallet functionality and encrypted communications.

Crypto Collectible Game Adds Support To Tron

A decentralized cryptocurrency collectible game has recently announced its support to the TRON network with its release of its popular Blockchain Cuties game to the said network.

Currently, the game supports Ethereum and EOS with the latest addition it will now support three blockchain.

According to the developers of Blockchain Cuties, the Tron version of the game will have unique content, including Cuties, items and locations.

The CEO of Blockchain Cuties Vladimir Tomko reveals that they have been seeking to work with Tron since June 2018 and believes that the Tron community will give the users more opportunity in representing their cuties in the battlefield.

He also reveals that with its integration the company hopes to attain higher transaction speeds compared to Ethereum that may bring more options to the game play.

Blockchain Cuties states that the vision and mission of Tron closely resonates with them.

Through the power of blockchain technology users will be able to publish, store and own their data.

According to the gaming company players will have full ownership of the Cutie’s value they have created.

Blockchain Cuties is the first crypto collectible placed on TRON arcade – the special $100 million fund created by TRON.

Second Largest Bank In Japan Launching Its Own Stablecoin

Mizuho, Japan’s second largest bank is reportedly launching its yen-pegged cryptocurrency in March 2019.

The new cryptocurrency can be used to make and receive payments through a mobile phone application.

According to the bank there will be no fees transferring the digital currency between their bank accounts and smartphones instead the bank would benefit by collecting more refined data on consumer spending patterns.

As per this writing the new digital currency has no name yet but is set to be rolled out to regional banks and retails shops according to unnamed sources.

It has been reported that shops using cryptocurrencies will be charge significantly lower fees compared to that of credit cards services.

It is not known yet is the new stablecoin is related to the J-coin project announced last September 2017 which was devised by then Mizuho Financial Group Chairman and CEO Yasuhiro Satu.

Japan continues to lead cryptocurrency race as it continue to delve deeper in the industry despite dire market conditions that has plagued the industry for most part of 2018.

On October 25, 2018 the Financial Services Agency gave the Japanese cryptocurrency ecosystem a huge boost at it allows local crypto businesses to self-regulate their operations.

In addition to the financial watch dog is contemplating regulation of initial coin offerings in the country.

Kuwait’s National Bank Will Use Ripple For New Service Offering

It has been reported that the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) will be the first financial institutional in the country to adopt blockchain technology.

On the other hand Ripple will be the first fintech that will bring blockchain Kuwaiti finance.

The announcement was made in the website of NBK which details the creation of the NBK Direct Remit which is a blockchain-powered remittance service for fast, cheap and frictionless cross-border transactions.

According to Mr. Dimitrios Kokosioulis, the Deputy CEO-Group operations & Technology the new blockchain solution will allow the development of a model service that will be accessible in more than 15 countries around the world.

The launch is part of the company’s commitment in responding to the needs of its customers for a safe, efficient, convenient and accessible solution that is available globally.

Marcus Treacher, SVP of Customer Success at Ripple states that NBK is an important partner in the region and expresses excitement on the bank’s foray into blockchain technology as it begin moving live payments across Ripple’s blockchain network on behalf of its customers.

He further states that Ripple will continue to work with NBK to connect them to other Ripple Net partners enabling its customers to make quicker, cheaper payments anywhere around the globe.

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