Jess Powell, CEO of Kraken, the world's fourth-largest digital currency exchange, warns that governments around the world may start to clamp down on the use of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. CNBC reports: "I think there could be some crackdown," Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken, told CNBC in an interview. Cryptocurrencies have surged in value lately, with bitcoin hitting a record high price of more than $61,000 last month. The world's most valuable digital coin was last trading at around $60,105. [...] Kraken's chief thinks regulatory uncertainty around crypto isn't going away anytime soon. A recent anti-money laundering rule proposed by the U.S. government would require people who hold their crypto in a private digital wallet to undergo identity checks if they make transactions of $3,000 or more.

"Something like that could really hurt crypto and kind of kill the original use case, which was to just make financial services accessible to everyone," Powell said. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have often been associated with illicit activities due to the fact that people transacting with it are pseudonymous -- you can see where funds are being sent but not who sent or received them. "I hope that the U.S. and international regulators don't take too much of a narrow view on this," Powell said. "Some other countries, China especially, are taking crypto very seriously and taking a very long-term view."

Kraken's CEO said he feels the U.S. is more "shortsighted" than other nations and "susceptible" to the pressures of incumbent legacy businesses -- in other words, the banks -- that "stand to lose from crypto becoming a big deal." "I also think it might be too late," Powell added. "Maybe the genie's out of the bottle and just trying to ban it at this point would make it more attractive. It would certainly send a message that the government sees this as a superior alternative to their own currency."

Peter Thiel is "pro-crypto" and "pro-Bitcoin maximalist," but he also thinks the cryptocurrency may be undermining America. From a report: Thiel, the venture capitalist and conservative political donor, urged the U.S. government to consider tighter regulations on cryptocurrencies in an appearance on Tuesday. The statements seemed to represent a change of heart for Thiel, who is a major investor in virtual currency ventures as well as in cryptocurriences themselves. "I do wonder whether at this point, Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.," Thiel said during an appearance at a virtual event held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation. "It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar." He added: "[If] China's long Bitcoin, perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works."

Signal announced on Tuesday it's now testing a new peer-to-peer payments system in the beta version of its apps. From a report: Appropriately called Signal Payments, the new feature right now supports only one protocol: the MobileCoin wallet and its companion cryptocurrency MOB. MobileCoin has a close relationship with Signal co-founder and CEO Moxie Marlinspike, who advised the company prior to its most recent round of funding announced last month. "The first payments protocol we've added support for is a privacy focused payments network called MobileCoin, which has its own currency, MOB," wrote Jun Harada, Signal's head of growth and communication, in a blog post. "As always, our goal is to keep your data in your hands rather than ours; MobileCoin's design means Signal does not have access to your balance, full transaction history, or funds. You can also transfer your funds at any time if you want to switch to another app or service."

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, said on Wednesday that the company now accepts Bitcoin as payment for cars in the United States. From a report: Tesla will hold the digital currency, rather than convert payments to dollars, and handle the crypto transactions internally, Mr. Musk said. "Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency," Mr. Musk explained in a tweet. That means when someone buys a Tesla with Bitcoin, the price of the car could well rise -- or fall -- over time. In other words, Tesla is turning one-time payments into assets with shifting value, or, essentially, investments. Buyers outside the United States will have the option to use Bitcoin "later this year," Mr. Musk said. Mr. Musk said last month that the company bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin for its treasury. The announcement on Wednesday confirms speculation in the crypto community that Tesla would not simply contract out payments to a third-party processor and treat Bitcoin like dollars. Musk tweeted, "Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly."

On Fortune's Leadership Next podcast yesterday, Visa CEO Alfred Kelly said that the payment processing behemoth is willing to facilitate not only bitcoin purchases, but also spending functionalities. "We're trying to do two things," said Kelly. "One is to enable the purchase of Bitcoin on Visa credentials. And secondly, working with Bitcoin wallets to allow the Bitcoin to be translated into a fiat currency and therefore immediately be able to be used at any of the 70 million places around the world where Visa is accepted." BTC Times reports: According to Kelly, Visa is working hard to earn its role as an intermediary in financial transactions even after Bitcoin sees mainstream adoption. Other than Bitcoin, the payment processor also plans to allow for the use of stablecoins. He admitted that the company recognizes "a strong potential for those to become a new payment vehicle." Kelly said Visa is collaborating with about 35 partners involved with stablecoins, explaining that "these are currencies that are fiat-backed, but we're allowing this translation, if you will, into a fiat currency and in a wallet where there's a Visa card and again that Visa card can be used with the translated digital currency over to the fiat currency to purchase at any one of our 70 million locations."

This is seemingly referring to Visa's partnership with Circle, the firm behind the USDC stablecoin. According to a report released by Forbes at the end of 2020, the payment processing giant partnered with Circle to integrate USDC into its infrastructure and allow credit card issuers to use USD Coin on their platforms and send and receive USDC payments. Visa's head of crypto Cuy Sheffield said at the time: "We continue to think of Visa as a network of networks. [...] Blockchain networks and stablecoins, like USDC, are just additional networks. So we think that there's a significant value that Visa can provide to our clients, enabling them to access them and enabling them to spend at our merchants."

A new feature has appeared at smoke shops in Montana, gas stations in the Carolinas and delis in far-flung corners of New York City: a brightly-lit bitcoin ATM, where customers can buy or sell digital currency, and sometimes extract hard cash. From a report: The machines have multiplied quickly through the United States over the past year, fueled by a frenzy in crypto trading that sent bitcoin prices over $58,000. Kiosk operators such as CoinFlip and Coin Cloud have installed thousands of ATMs, scouring areas competitors have not yet reached, executives told Reuters. "I just assumed there was demand and people wanted bitcoin everywhere," said Quad Coin founder Mark Shoiket, who flew to Montana after scanning a U.S. map for bitcoin ATM deserts. During a week-long road trip, he found seven places to install machines, including 406 Glass, a store in Billings, Montana, that sells tobacco, vape juice and colorful glass pipes. As of January, there were 28,185 bitcoin ATMs in the United States, according to howmanybitcoinatms.com, an independent research site. Roughly 10,000 came within the prior five months.

According to Reuters, "India will propose a law banning cryptocurrencies, fining anyone trading in the country or even holding such digital assets." From the report: The bill, one of the world's strictest policies against cryptocurrencies, would criminalize possession, issuance, mining, trading and transferring crypto-assets, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the plan. The measure is in line with a January government agenda that called for banning private virtual currencies such as bitcoin while building a framework for an official digital currency. But recent government comments had raised investors' hopes that the authorities might go easier on the booming market.

Instead, the bill would give holders of cryptocurrencies up to six months to liquidate, after which penalties will be levied, said the official, who asked not to be named as the contents of the bill are not public. Officials are confident of getting the bill enacted into law as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government holds a comfortable majority in parliament. If the ban becomes law, India would be the first major economy to make holding cryptocurrency illegal. Even China, which has banned mining and trading, does not penalize possession. According to the senior official, the plan is to ban private crypto-assets while promoting blockchain. "We don't have a problem with technology. There's no harm in harnessing the technology," said the official, adding the government's moves would be "calibrated" in the extent of the penalties on those who did not liquidate crypto-assets within the law's grace period.

The report notes that 8 million investors in India now hold 100 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) in crypto-investments.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Bitcoin rose nearly 7% on Monday as risk assets rallied after last week's bond rout cooled, with Citi saying the most popular cryptocurrency was at a "tipping point" and could become the preferred currency for international trade. With the recent embrace of the likes of Tesla and Mastercard, bitcoin could be at the start of a "massive transformation" into the mainstream, the investment bank said. Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, has restarted its cryptocurrency trading desk and will begin dealing bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards for clients next week, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Bitcoin, which hit a record high of $58,354 in February, could in the future become the preferred currency for international trade or face a "speculative implosion," Citi said. "There are a host of risks and obstacles that stand in the way of bitcoin progress," Citi's analysts wrote. "But weighing these potential hurdles against the opportunities leads to the conclusion that bitcoin is at a tipping point."

Bitcoin's recent performance has come with the growing involvement of institutional investors in recent years, contrasting with its heavy retail investor focus for most of the past decade, Citi said. If businesses and individuals gain access via digital wallets to planned central bank digital cash and so-called stablecoins, bitcoin's global reach, traceability and potential for quick payments would see it "optimally positioned" to become the preferred currency for international trade, Citi added. Such a dramatic transformation to the de facto currency of world trade -- a status currently held by the dollar -- would depend on changes to bitcoin's market to allow wider institutional participation and closer oversight by financial regulators, Citi said. Still, shifts in the macroeconomic environment could also make the demand for bitcoin less pressing, it added.

Goldman Sachs Group has restarted its cryptocurrency trading desk and will begin dealing bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards for clients from next week, Reuters reported Monday, citing a source. From the report: The team will sit within the U.S. bank's Global Markets division, the person said. The desk is part of Goldman's activities within the fast-growing digital assets sector, which also includes projects involving blockchain technology and central bank digital currencies, the person said. As part of this work, the bank is also exploring the potential for a bitcoin exchange traded fund and has issued a request for information to explore digital asset custody, the source said. The trading desk reboot comes amid growing interest by institutions in bitcoin, which has soared more than 470% over the past year. The largest cryptocurrency is seen by investors and some companies as a hedge against inflation as governments and central banks turn on the stimulus taps.

From a report: Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has an interesting take on who should buy Bitcoins. He being the third richest man in the world said that Bitcoins are not for him because he has less money than Tesla CEO Elon Musk. So basically anybody who has less money than Musk should not invest in Bitcoin...

Gates during an interview with Bloomberg TV had said that Bitcoin is not for everyone and only the richest person in the world should consider investing in it. "Elon has tons of money and he's very sophisticated, so I don't worry that his Bitcoin will sort of randomly go up or down.I do think people get bought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare. My general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out," Gates said in the interview.
Last week Australia's national broadcast reported that even Elon Musk "has made it clear that he views cryptocurrency as 'speculation.'" On February 7 (the night before Tesla revealed its massive bet on crypto), Mr Musk was on his way to have dinner with his children at an upmarket steakhouse in West Hollywood. Before he reached its front door, he was intercepted by a legion of adoring fans — who demanded autographs, while peppering him with questions about the cryptocurrency market.

The world's richest man had been talking up bitcoin, along with a "joke" currency called "dogecoin", which has surged about 900 per cent since the year began. There were signs that Mr Musk was worried that some of his fans might be taking his recent crypto jokes as genuine investment advice.

"People should not invest their life savings in cryptocurrency, to be clear — that's unwise," Mr Musk said, in his clearest warning yet.

"There's a good chance that crypto is the future currency of Earth, and it's like... which one's it going to be? Maybe it'll be multiple. It should be considered speculation at this point.

"So don't go too far with the crypto speculation front."
Later in the video Musk adds, "Don't bet the farm on crypto."

In the 10 years since Chris Torres created Nyan Cat, an animated flying cat with a Pop-Tart body leaving a rainbow trail, the meme has been viewed and shared across the web hundreds of millions of times. On Thursday, he put a one-of-a-kind version of it up for sale on Foundation, a website for buying and selling digital goods. In the final hour of the auction, there was a bidding war. Nyan Cat was sold to a user identified only by a cryptocurrency wallet number. The price? Roughly $580,000. From a report: Mr. Torres was left breathless. "I feel like I've opened the floodgates," he said in an interview on Friday. The sale was a new high point in a fast-growing market for ownership rights to digital art, ephemera and media called NFTs, or "nonfungible tokens." The buyers are usually not acquiring copyrights, trademarks or even the sole ownership of whatever it is they purchase. They're buying bragging rights and the knowledge that their copy is the "authentic" one.

Other digital tokens recently sold include a clip of LeBron James blocking a shot in a Lakers basketball game that went for $100,000 in January and a Twitter post by Mark Cuban, the investor and Dallas Mavericks owner, that went for $952. This month, the actress Lindsay Lohan sold an image of her face for over $17,000 and, in a nod to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, declared, "I believe in a world which is financially decentralized." It was quickly resold for $57,000. People have long attached emotional and aesthetic value to physical goods, like fine art or baseball cards, and have been willing to pay a lot of money for them. But digital media has not had the same value because it can be easily copied, shared and stolen.

Blockchain technology, which is most often associated with Bitcoin, is changing that. NFTs rely on the technology to designate an official copy of a piece of digital media, allowing artists, musicians, influencers and sports franchises to make money selling digital goods that would otherwise be cheap or free. In an NFT sale, all the computers hooked into a cryptocurrency network record the transaction on a shared ledger, a blockchain, making it part of a permanent public record and serving as a sort of certification of authenticity that cannot be altered or erased. The nascent market for these items reflects a notable, technologically savvy move by creators of digital content to connect financially with their audience and eliminate middlemen. Some NFT buyers are collectors and fans who show off what they have bought on social media or screens around their homes. Others are trying to make a quick buck as cryptocurrency prices surge. Many see it as a form of entertainment that mixes gambling, sports card collecting, investing and day trading. Eye-popping NFT sale prices have attracted some of the same confusion and derision that have long haunted the cryptocurrency world, which has struggled to find a good use for its technology beyond currency trading.

New York's attorney general filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to shut down the cryptocurrency platform Coinseed for allegedly defrauding thousands of investors, including by charging hidden trading fees and selling "worthless" digital tokens. From a report: Attorney General Letitia James said Coinseed traded cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin without registering as a broker-dealer, and sold "CSD" tokens without authorization to raise money for its mobile application startup. James also sued Coinseed Chief Executive Delgerdalai Davaasambuu and former Chief Financial Officer Sukhbat Lkhagvadorj, saying they overstated the midtown Manhattan-based company's management experience, while Lkhagvadorj misrepresented himself as a former Wall Street trader. Coinseed's fraud totaled more than $1 million, according to James, who is also seeking restitution for investors. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a related lawsuit against Coinseed and Davaasambuu over the tokens, which both regulators said were sold from December 2017 to May 2018.

Miami's mayor Francis Suarez is trying to attract tech talent to his city. (The New York Times recently noted he's joined by "a few venture capital influencers trying to tweet the city's startup world into existence.") So he's still pushing a proposal to use bitcoin in a few city operations as "part of a larger play if you will to position Miami as one of the most tech-forward cities in the country," according to Reuters.

Bloomberg reports: The mayor wants to allow the City of Miami's workers to choose to receive all or a portion of their pay in Bitcoin, according to a resolution passed by the city's governing commission. In addition, the mayor proposed allowing people to pay all or part of property taxes or city fees in crypto.

Although the commission approved the resolution 4-1, it significantly dialed back its original wording. It only agreed to study the practicality of such steps, rather than taking action, as the original proposal had suggested...

Suarez also wants the city to analyze the feasibility to invest some government funds in Bitcoin, the resolution said. It's not clear how much of that is actually possible: Florida statutes have strict limitations on how local governments can invest surplus funds, generally restricting investments to low-volatility instruments such as those issued by the U.S. government. In the past year alone, Bitcoin has shown it can double in price — or lose half its value — in a month's time....

Ken Russell, vice-chairman of the city commission, said he's "certainly not opposed" to the idea of integrating Bitcoin into the city's business, but it's important to ensure "we all know what we're getting into."

"What needs to be done is diligence, and not just from the legal perspective," he said in an interview Wednesday. "It's not just a currency, it's a concept."
Bloomberg also points out that the mayor of the City of Miami "doesn't control the budget or municipal workforce or get a vote on the commission.

"He asked voters to give him more managerial power, but the initiative failed."

Canada's main securities regulator has cleared the launch of the world's first bitcoin exchange traded fund, an investment manager said on Friday, providing investors greater access to the cryptocurrency that has sparked an explosion in trading interest. Reuters reports: The Ontario Securities Commission has approved the launch of Purpose Bitcoin ETF, Toronto-based asset management company Purpose Investments Inc. said in a statement. The OSC confirmed the approval in a separate statement to Reuters. "The ETF will be the first in the world to invest directly in physically settled Bitcoin, not derivatives, allowing investors easy and efficient access to the emerging asset class of cryptocurrency," Purpose Investments said.

Investors have been able to trade bitcoin using futures contracts on the CME derivatives exchange. They can also buy closed-end investment funds, such as the Bitcoin Fund on the Toronto Stock Exchange. [...] In the United States, eight firms have tried without success since 2013 to create a bitcoin ETF, according to Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at New York based CFRA. Among issues the Securities and Exchange Commission appears to be focused on are the potential for market manipulation and the process of custody audits that verify that a fund holds its purported assets.

The kingpin or kingpins of the world's biggest illicit credit card marketplace have retired after making an estimated fortune of over $1 billion in cryptocurrency, according to research by blockchain analysis firm Elliptic shared with Reuters. From the report: The "Joker's Stash" marketplace, where stolen credit cards and identity data traded hands for bitcoin and other digital coins, ceased operations this month, Elliptic said on Friday, in what it called a rare example of such a site bowing out on its own terms. Criminal use of cryptocurrencies has long worried regulators, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde calling last month for tighter oversight. While terrorist financing and money laundering are top of law-enforcement concerns, narcotics, fraud, scams and ransomware are among the chief areas of illegal use of digital currencies, according to Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson. Joker's Stash was launched in 2014, with its anonymous founder "JokerStash" -- which could be one or more people -- posting messages in both Russian and English, Elliptic said. It was available on the regular web and via the darknet, which hosts marketplaces selling contraband.

Mastercard announced on Wednesday it was planning to offer support for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year. Reuters reports: Mastercard already offers customers cards that allow people to transact using their cryptocurrencies, although without going through its network. "Doing this work will create a lot more possibilities for shoppers and merchants, allowing them to transact in an entirely new form of payment. This change may open merchants up to new customers who are already flocking to digital assets," Mastercard said. Mastercard specified that not all cryptocurrencies will be supported on its network, adding that many of the hundreds of digital assets in circulation still need to tighten their compliance measures. The announcement comes after Elon Musk revealed it had purchased $1.5 billion of bitcoin and would soon accept it as a form of payment.

RBC Capital Markets says Apple should follow in Tesla's footsteps by getting into cryptocurrencies. Bloomberg reports: The iPhone maker could create a sizable new market for growth if it were to develop its Apple Wallet into a crypto exchange, said analyst Mitch Steves. "The wallet initiative appears to be a clear multi-billion dollar opportunity for the firm (potential for well over $40 billion in annual revenue with limited R&D)," Steves wrote in a note to clients. Companies like Square and PayPal, along with closely held exchanges like Coinbase, have all validated the exchange model as a real business, he said, and Apple would immediately gain market share if it were to enter the industry. In addition, Apple's ecosystem would offer improved security relative to the companies that would be its competitors.

While Apple's biggest cryptocurrency opportunity would be in building an exchange, it could also consider adding Bitcoin or another digital currency to its balance sheet, RBC wrote. "This would send even more users to 'Apple Exchange,'" Steves said, and would likely further boost Bitcoin prices. Yesterday, Elon Musk announced that Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin and said it may accept the cryptocurrency as a form of payment in the future. As a result, Bitcoin prices climbed as much as 16%, cresting $44,000 and hitting a record.

A Reddit user claiming to be a Tesla insider appeared to announce the carmaker's purchase of bitcoin a month ago, according to a January post on the platform that said the electric carmaker had bought $800 million worth of Bitcoin. Reuters reports: The post here received little attention when it appeared, with the date on it reading Jan. 2, but it is getting a second look now, a day after the electric carmaker, led by Elon Musk, disclosed a $1.5-billion investment in the cryptocurrency, sending Bitcoin to fresh highs. "I am a software dev working at R&D at Tesla in California, over the past 72 hours our company bought 24701 BTC at an average price of 33142$," a user with the handle TSLAinsider posted in the bitcoin subreddit. "I have no idea what will happen once this reaches the newspapers but I think the price will explode even more," the user wrote.

Moderators in r/Tesla, a subreddit dedicated to posts on the electric carmaker, appeared to remove the post here. It was left up in r/bitcoin, where the cryptocurrency is discussed. Reuters could not verify the user's identity, whether the user is a Tesla employee or whether the post was modified from the original. Tesla did not immediately respond to an email to its press office. [...] As the post was focused on bitcoin, the tipper may benefit from a gray area in oversight and enforcement, as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) does not treat the cryptocurrency as a security, one expert said.

Friday the 71-year-old former lead singer of the band Kiss tweeted "I bought Dogecoin...six figures," to his 922,000 followers, along with other supportive tweets.

Saturday rap artist Snoop Dogg tweeted an image of "Snoop Doge" to his 19.2 million followers.

Later Elon Musk tweeted a picture from the Lion King with Musk's head appearing on a monkey holding up a monkey with Gene Simmons' head, holding up a monkey with Snoop Dogg's head, holding up a Shiba Inu dog (symbolizing Dogecoin). The text of the tweet to his 45.9 million followers: "So... it's finally come to this..." (He also later tweeted "Dogecoin to the Moooonn".)

Hours later Bloomberg reported that Dogecoin "rose 46% in the last 24 hours to 7.4 cents as of 1 p.m. in New York on Sunday," citing data from CoinMarketCap. In fact, Dogecoin is now approaching its all-time high, with a market value of $9.5 billion, making it the world's 10th-largest cryptocurrency. ("Bitcoin has also rallied this week, topping a record of $40,000, before paring gains.")

Business Insider calls Dogecoin a "meme-based cryptocurrency," noting it's "benefited" from the mania driven by Reddit's WallStreetBets. But they also point its year-to-date returns were about 1,032.91% (according to CoinDesk calculations).

"In a world gone mad with a pandemic and social upheaval, cryptocurrencies are having a moment," writes the Chicago Tribune: [Dogecoin] bubbled along for years at well under a penny, but in 2018 leapt to a high of nearly 2 cents as part of a larger cryptocurrency bubble. It didn't last — within a day it was worth less than 1 cent again — but that set a pattern in which everyone from TikTokkers to Musk could make the price jump with some online attention, all the while egged on by investors cheering, "To the moon!" Still, it took the recent stock run-up to catapult the currency to an unprecedented pinnacle, as commenters begged each other not to sell to keep the price high...

Ja'Mal Green, a Black Lives Matter activist and former Chicago mayoral candidate who said he has "many thousands" of Dogecoins, sees the currency as a way for people without much money or financial expertise to get in the game with hedge funds and billionaires. "I like how these groups are coming together to really talk about what it means to play in cryptocurrency or stocks, to play in the market," he said. "It's great to see the bottom 99% come together to figure out how they can achieve wealth together and bridge that economic gap a bit."

But Eric Budish, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business who studies cryptocurrencies, warned they are particularly vulnerable to bubbles because they are not tied to economic fundamentals in the way a stock price (ideally) reflects a company's earnings. As long as everyone holds, he said, the price will indeed go up. The problem is you can never be sure you've picked the right time to cash out. "When people try to sell, the price will come down," he said. "That means everybody wants to sell first. Nobody wants to be the last guy selling, and that's sort of the essence of a pump and dump...."

Nelson Morales, a Beach Park, Illinois, data center engineer who runs a Facebook group called Cryptocurrency of Greater Chicago, has his doubts about the currency. He worries about inexperienced investors getting drawn into a "dangerous, roulette-style pump" that could end with a disastrous crash.

Still, that hasn't stopped him from putting $50 of his own into Dogecoin. "I just want to have a canary in the tunnel," he said. "The canary's still alive. I'm impressed."

Yesterday, in an earnings call, Visa CEO Alfred Kelly said that the firm wants to "work with wallets and exchanges" on handling crypto, and has called bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies "digital gold." Cryptocurrency News reports: During his talk, Kelly spent a significant amount of time discussing crypto. After differentiating a divide between "cryptocurrencies that represent new assets such as bitcoin" and "digital currencies and stablecoins" backed by fiat holdings, he stated: "We see all [cryptocurrencies] as digital gold. They are predominantly held as assets that are not used as a form of payment in a significant way at this point. Our strategy here is to work with wallets and exchanges to enable users to purchase these currencies using their Visa credentials or to cash out onto our Visa credential to make fiat purchase[s]."

The Visa chief appeared to be keen to leave the door open for all crypto projects that show promise, pledging that should "a specific digital currency become a recognized means of exchange, there's no reason why we cannot add it to our network, which already supports over 160 currencies." And Kelly appeared ready to court the custom of stablecoin issuers -- as well as digital currency-issuing central banks. He said: "For [...] stablecoins and central bank digital currencies, these are an emerging payments innovation that could have the potential to be used for global commerce, much like any other fiat currency. We think of digital currencies running on public blockchains as additional networks [...] we see them as part of our network of networks strategy. [...] We are the clear leader in this space."