“Strike, the world’s leading digital payments platform built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, today announced its integration with Shopify, unlocking the ability for eligible U.S. Shopify merchants to receive bitcoin payments from customers globally as U.S. dollars.”

“So begins my journey—and experiment. For five days, I’m trying to pay my bills only in Bitcoin. El Salvador is the ideal laboratory. In September it became the first country to declare Bitcoin legal tender , which means all businesses should accept it as a form of payment.”

“Cash App, the mobile payment service developed by Block (SQ) (formerly Square), the company led by Twitter (TWTR) co-founder Jack Dorsey, announced at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami on Thursday that it’s rolling out three new services, including the following: Get Paid in Bitcoin allows customers to auto-invest a percentage of their paycheck into bitcoin. Fiat currency coming in through automated clearing house (ACH) rails will be automatically converted into bitcoin. Bitcoin Roundups lets users round up payments to the nearest dollar to buy bitcoin with the difference. Lightning Network (LN) Receives enables users to receive bitcoin in Cash App through the Lightning Network. The ability to send bitcoin through that network was enabled in January .”

“New data has highlighted the significant role of institutional investors in Bitcoin transactions as the asset continues to experience wild price swings.   Currently, institutions account for over 99% of all Bitcoin volume emanating from transactions valued at over $100,000, data provided by IntoTheBlock indicates .  The report notes that institutional interest in crypto accelerated from the third quarter of 2020, where the share for large transactions has never dropped below 90%.”

“The American fast-food restaurant chain Shake Shack is giving bitcoin rewards to customers leveraging Cash App’s debit card payment rail, Cash Card. According to Shake Shack, participants will get 15% of their purchase back in the form of bitcoin, and the crypto promotion will last until mid-March.”

“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged El Salvador to reverse its decision to make Bitcoin legal tender. In September, El Salvador became the first country to allow consumers to use the cryptocurrency in all transactions, alongside the US dollar. The decision led to large-scale protests over fears it would bring instability and inflation to the impoverished Latin American country. Bitcoin has lost about half its value since November.”

“Late last year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down from his position in order to give his full attention to his other company Square, now called Block , which had become increasingly invested in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency — just like Dorsey himself. Now we’re starting to see the results of Block’s embrace of crypto, as this morning Cash App announced it’s integrated with the Lightning Network, allowing its U.S. users to send bitcoin for free to anyone worldwide.”

“Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block (formerly Square) is going to start mining for bitcoin. In a string of tweets, Block’s general manager for hardware, Thomas Templeton, laid out the company’s plans for next steps.   Templeton says the goal is to make bitcoin mining — the process of creating new bitcoins by solving increasingly complex computational problems — more distributed and efficient in every way, ‘from buying, to set up, to maintenance, to mining.'”

“NYDIG, a leading bitcoin company, announced today that its subsidiary Bottlepay, a Bitcoin-based global payments company, has been granted registration as a Cryptoasset Business from the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Bottlepay is one of a small number of cryptoasset firms to have secured such approval and is the first Lightning Network payments company to have done so. FCA registration requires firms to demonstrate that they comply with the UK’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulations. Businesses dealing with cryptoassets must register with the FCA to operate within the UK.”

“Computer Services, Inc. (CSI) (OTCQX: CSVI), a provider of end-to-end fintech and regtech solutions , has partnered with NYDIG, a leading bitcoin company, to offer a full suite of turnkey Bitcoin services to community financial institutions. Powered by NYDIG, the new offering allows banking customers to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin directly within CSI’s digital banking platform, creating a safe and efficient way for users to manage their digital transactions.”

“El Salvador, the only country in which bitcoin is a legal tender, is going to build an entire city based on the largest cryptocurrency, President Nayib Bukele told a raucous crowd in a Saturday night presentation at Bitcoin Week in El Salvador. “Bitcoin City” will be located along the Gulf of Fonseca near a volcano. The government plans on locating a power plant by the volcano to provide energy for both the city and bitcoin mining, the president said.”

“Square’s Bitcoin business TBD today released the whitepaper of its decentralized bitcoin exchange proposal, tbDEX, according to a statement posted on its website…The tbDEX protocol aims to bridge the gap between the fiat and bitcoin worlds, given that most people still receive their paychecks in fiat currency and pay taxes in fiat currency. The project aims to make it easier for those who want to convert their debasing fiat for appreciating bitcoin in the purest free-market possible.”

“A seemingly run-of-the-mill trial is playing out in Florida: The family of a deceased man is suing his former business partner over control of their partnership’s assets. In this case, the assets in question are a cache of about one million bitcoins, equivalent to around $64 billion today, belonging to bitcoin’s creator, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. The family of the dead man says he and his business partner together were Nakamoto, and thus the family is entitled to half of the fortune.”

“Mode Global Holdings PLC said Thursday that it has partnered with payroll provider PayEscape to launch a pilot of U.K.’s first Bitcoin Payroll product, with an internal test pilot underway. The fintech company said Bitcoin Payroll will deduct a portion of an employees net pay each month, converting it into Bitcoin and depositing it into the user’s Mode Bitcoin wallet. An internal test pilot is underway with significant uptake, the company said. Pilots will be run within Mode and PayEscape throughout the rest of 2021 and the beginning of 2022.”

“FinCEN, the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, found that more than $5 billion in bitcoin transactions were linked to payments made to the top-ten most popular ransomware variants. These findings were published by the institution in a report titled “Ransomware Trends in Bank Secrecy Act Data Between January 2021 and June 2021,” which summarizes the ransomware activity during the first two quarters of the year.”

“Dorsey believes that further decentralizing the Bitcoin network will be critical for securely settling the transactions “well after the last bitcoin is mined.” Moreover, Square’s system aims to deliver energy-efficient mining solutions by innovation in silicon, software and integration. The initiative will be led by Jesse Dorogusker, Square’s hardware lead, who previously helped launch Square’s hardware wallet and custody service . According to Dorsey, the company will build the mining system following a similar collaborative approach that was used to develop its “assisted custody” BTC hardware wallet.”

“Twitter’s slate of new product announcements is not slowing down. The company today introduced a number of new initiatives aimed at better serving the conversations and community using its platform, including support for tipping with crypto, NFT authentication, and plans for other experiments designed to provide more context about a conversation to those just joining in. The company also said it’s preparing to launch its own creator fund in a few weeks to provide audio creators with access to financial, technical, and marketing support.”

“El Salvador faced a rocky transition in its adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender on Tuesday. The government’s app for facilitating transactions — its “digital wallet” — went offline temporarily, protesters took to the streets of the capital to denounce the move, and the price of Bitcoin dropped sharply, demonstrating the volatility of the cryptocurrency market. The country is the first to use Bitcoin as an official currency, encouraging businesses and citizens to use it in everyday transactions, and the authorities struggled to smooth out glitches in the new system.”

“MVB Bank Inc. and Victor Technologies Inc. on Tuesday said they were entering a partnership which will help MVB Bank integrate Bitcoin into its banking-as-a-service solutions. MVB Bank and Victor said they will work with NYDIG, a technology and financial services firm dedicated to Bitcoin. MVB said it will be able to offer its fintech clients Bitcoin-related products, “all powered by NYDIG’s secure, regulated, full-stack platform.”

“El Salvador bought roughly $20.9 million worth of bitcoin , one day before it formally adopts the world’s most popular cryptocurrency as legal tender .  In a series of tweets Monday, President Nayib Bukele revealed that the country had purchased a total of 400 bitcoin, the first step in a larger push to add the digital currency to its balance sheet.”

“Today Worldline [Euronext: WLN] and Bitcoin Suisse announce the go-live of their omnichannel crypto payment solution for the more than 85’000 Swiss merchants in the Worldline network. Now all merchants in Switzerland using the Worldline point-of-sale and e-commerce payment services can let their clients pay in Bitcoin and Ether as easily as with other traditional payment options.”

“Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on Monday denied a media report saying the e-commerce giant was looking to accept bitcoin payments by the end of the year. The report from London’s City A.M. newspaper, citing an unnamed “insider”, sent the world’s biggest cryptocurrency up as much as 14.5% before it trimmed gains to last trade 6% higher at $37,684.04.”

“Amazon has plans to accept the cryptocurrency bitcoin by the end of 2021, according to an anonymously sourced report in the London newspaper City A.M. And while this is just the word of one anonymous “insider” at the Seattle-based mega-retailer, bitcoin’s price skyrocketed overnight and it’s creating a lot of buzz in the world of cryptocurrencies—a world built on little more than buzz.”

“Bitcoin fell below $30,000 for the first time since Jun. 22 dragging other digital coins lower. About $89 billion was wiped off the entire cryptocurrency market in 24 hours as of 6:29 a.m. ET on Tuesday, according to CoinMarketCap data.”