From brokering insurance contracts to financial settlements, smart contracts could bring immense innovation to CBDCs that otherwise would act as little more than an augmented medium of exchange, says Cypherium's Sky Guo.

During his 18-year run at Visa driving innovation and strategic partnerships, one of Jim McCarthy’s frustrations was seeing how long it sometimes takes for financial institutions and issuers to embrace new technology.

BitPay and Paxos are only the latest digital currency companies to pursue a national charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The new service from the Boston-based asset manager comes at a time of soaring price increases for the world's most valuable digital asset.

Sells, American Banker's Digital Banker of the Year for 2020, says he will help the New York fintech startup create digital currency products for banks.

E-commerce and digital finance are expanding quickly due to the pandemic, economic downturn and plans for recovery — providing opportunities for VCs that back technology that powers faster, more digital payments.

Cryptocurrency is cooking with a fall rally and lots of attention from recognizable companies like Square and PayPal. For Daniel Polotsky, any good news for bitcoin is welcome.

London-based crypto payments app Ziglu, launched by Starling Bank co-founder Mark Hipperson, has raised £6 million (about $8 million) on the Seedrs equity crowdfunding platform.

Libra is distancing itself from Facebook not only through a name change, but also by attempting to draw attention toward its digital payment rail instead of the creation of alternative money.

High profile companies like Facebook, Square and PayPal have brought attention to using cryptocurrency for payments — but speed is more important than buzz in getting stores to view crypto as tender, according to a group of developers who are building connections to merchants.

For years, business models based around micropayments have been touted as an alternative to advertising, offering a new form of revenue for all kinds of content creators, enabling users to pay for the exact quantity of services they consume. They have even been suggested as a way to create alternative insurance products, for example forms of car insurance where drivers pay per journey.

Inflationary and macroeconomic pressures will position bitcoin as a new asset that acts as a recognized store of value against inflation, says FiCAS' Ali Mizani Oskui.

Bitcoin has underpinned the next generation of currencies, while showing that central banks are not necessarily needed as administrators or gatekeepers.

Bitcoin extended recent gains in Friday trading, continuing its slow progress toward $16,000 after joining a slew of assets from oil to Asian stocks that rallied in the wake of the U.S. election.

Bitcoin showed the world that software can be open source, censorship resistant, decentralized, permissionless and borderless, says Woorton's Zahreddine Touag.

Blockchain has too many advantages over traditional payment solutions for merchants to ignore. By accepting cryptocurrency, merchants can tap into a growing multibillion-dollar market and get a taste of a cashless, borderless future, says Nash's Kellogg Fairbank.

PayPal wants to clear the way for its users to buy, sell, hold — and shop with — cryptocurrency, but some obstacles may prove costly to overcome.

PayPal Holdings Inc. is exploring acquisitions of cryptocurrency companies including Bitcoin custodian BitGo Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would expand its embrace of digital coins.

The Department of Justice can still investigate and arrest the developers behind the automatic transactions, says Exante's Anatoliy Knyazev.

PayPal isn’t the first company to open its platform to cryptocurrencies, but its technique is more hands-on than most payment providers.