Without aggressive marketing tactics, fintech giant PayPal is quietly and consistently venturing deeper into the crypto space, rolling out features and building key partnerships to advance its digital assets strategy.
This week, PayPal unveiled new on-ramps and off-ramps for cryptocurrencies for its clients in the United States โ a noteworthy step for the country, particularly as many crypto firms struggle with supporting fiat-crypto conversions since the United States Securities and Exchange Commission began its controversial crackdown on the industry.
Also deepening ties with the crypto ecosystem is the traditional asset manager firm Franklin Templeton. The company filed for a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S., joining a long list of major investment firms seeking approval for a Bitcoin investment product, including names such as BlackRock, Fidelity and WisdomTree, among many others.
With new participants joining the digital assets world daily, itโs evident that crypto is becoming more mainstream, even in the face of a long bearish market.
This weekโs Crypto Biz looks at PayPalโs crypto gateway, Franklin Templetonโs BTC ETF filing, Coinbaseโs Lightning Network integration, and Metaโs plans for a new AI model.
PayPal enables US users to sell cryptocurrency via MetaMask wallet
PayPal continues expanding its digital asset services, integrating new methods to sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The payments giant introduced on Sept. 11 new on- and off-ramps for Web3 payments, allowing users in the U.S. to convert their crypto to U.S. dollars directly from their wallets into their PayPal balance. The off-ramp feature is available to wallets, decentralized applications and nonfungible token marketplaces and is live on MetaMask. The latest rollout came shortly after PayPal partnered with hardware wallet firm Ledger to provide a new on-ramp integration in August 2023, allowing verified users in the U.S. to buy Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) directly on a Ledger hardware wallet.
Franklin Templeton files for spot Bitcoin ETF
Asset manager Franklin Templeton applied with the U.S. SEC on Sept. 12 to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF. The S-1 registration statement comes after the SEC delayed decisions on spot ETF applications from WisdomTree, Valkyrie, Fidelity, VanEck, Bitwise and Invesco on Aug. 31 and a court ruling on Aug. 29 that the SEC must consider Grayscaleโs application to convert its BTC futures ETF into a spot ETF. According to the application, the fund would be structured as a trust. Coinbase would custody the BTC, and Bank of New York Mellon would be the cash custodian and administrator. Franklin Templeton has $1.5 trillion in assets under management.
Meta is building an AI model to rival OpenAIโs most powerful system
Social media giant Meta is developing a new artificial intelligence (AI) model that will rival OpenAIโs most advanced version. According to sources from The Wall Street Journal, the new model will be โseveral timesโ more powerful than its Llama 2 model, which Meta released earlier this year. Llama was trained on 70 billion parameters, and while OpenAI hasnโt released its parameters for GPT-4, theyโre estimated to be around 1.5 trillion. Metaโs new system will be open-source, allowing other companies to build AI tools to produce high-level text, analysis and other types of output with it. The company has also been building the data centers necessary to create such a high-level system while acquiring more of Nvidiaโs H100 semiconductor chips.
Coinbase to integrate Bitcoin Lightning Network: CEO Brian Armstrong
Crypto exchange Coinbase has confirmed its decision to integrate layer-2 payment protocol Lightning Network (LN) as users seek faster and cheaper Bitcoin transactions. Until recently, major crypto exchanges, including Coinbase and Binance, had no intent to adopt the layer-2 solution, as many community members argued that LN integration offered fewer incentives for exchangesโ income. Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, asked the crypto community to be patient during the integration process. LN was created to help solve Bitcoinโs scalability problem and to compete against projects promising faster and cheaper transactions. The decision comes a month after Viktor Bunin, a protocol specialist at Coinbase, started investigating the feasibility of LN integration.
Weโre looking into how to best add Lightning. Itโs non-trivial, but I think worth doing. Iโm all for payments taking off in Bitcoin.
Not sure why you think weโre ignoring Bitcoin – weโve onboarded more people to Bitcoin than probably any company in the world.
Letโs build itโฆ https://t.co/9dFGYd6XZt
โ Brian Armstrong ๏ธ (@brian_armstrong) August 2, 2023
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