Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Overbit Weekly Round Up. The first news is about a deal between NCR and digital asset management firm NYDIG that may see 650 US banks provide bitcoin purchases to an estimated 24 million consumers.
Community banks, such as First Citizens Bank in North Carolina will be permitted to offer bitcoin trading to their customers. Customers of credit unions, such as Bay Federal Credit Union in California, can also use mobile applications developed by the payment’s supplier.
NCR, situated in Atlanta, sought to capitalisorgane on the demand it was witnessing from banks and credit unions. However, it was also sick of seeing cryptocurrency purchases made from their accounts to third-party exchanges. The organisation, which was founded in 1884 as the National Cash Register, employs 34,000 people and provides services ranging from digital banking to ATMs.
On the other hand, NCR is now directly competing with those cryptocurrency exchanges by providing their clients with a way to buy cryptocurrencies. In addition, to make things easier, NCR will choose to have NYDIG handle custody services. As a result, they are in charge of complying with the regulatory procedures associated with actually owning cryptocurrencies.
In the past year, NYDIG has already done some work to assist crypto acceptance further. For example, it partnered with fintech behemoth Fidelity National Information Service last month to give a similar service of access to crypto assets.
Patrick Sells, NYDIG’s head of bank solutions, revealed that hundreds of banks had already signed up for the program. The majority of these banks that have signed on are smaller ones, but NYDIG was also in discussions with some larger ones. For example, Massachusetts Mutual revealed a $100 million investment in Bitcoin late last year, which is made through NYDIG. The life insurance business said it had taken a “limited yet meaningful exposure” to Bitcoin while remaining diversified.
Closing out today’s edition of Overbit Weekly Round Up, we take a look at one major cryptocurrency player looking to move from China to the United States — and it isn’t a mining operation.
Chainbytes, a company that manufactures Bitcoin ATM machines converting dollars into the cryptocurrency and vice versa, has recently made the decision to export their operations into America amidst all the international chaos.
“We were having a lot of shipping problems with China,” he says. “We’re gonna export them from here to the United States.”.
Though this may seem like cause for alarm, as yet another big industry player looks to move away from mainland China, this case appears to be a case of its own. In particular, one betting on the future of El Salvador.
According to reports, ChainBytes’s Grill expects to fill a ton of demand for the soon-to-be booming Bitcoin economy in El Salvador. Several local banks have already reached out to Grill, per reports.
The passing of Bukele’s aforementioned Bitcoin law has been met with scepticism and worry by almost every financial institution on the planet, starting with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Moreover, Bitcoin’s volatility, exemplified by its plunge to about $30,000 this week, after grazing $65,000 in April, has been lambasted as a recipe for financial disaster.
It’s only a short way until the law is implemented in September, so we will have to wait and see to find out how things really play out. Until then, expect an onslaught of contenders like ChainBytes looking to capitalise on the opportunity.
As always, thanks so much for reading Overbit Weekly Round Up.