Technology

Mastercard will help banks offer cryptocurrency trading

Published

2 years ago

October 17, 2022

admin

A 3D printed Mastercard logo is seen in front of displayed stock graph in this illustration taken September 20, 2021.

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Mastercard is looking to bring crypto to the masses by making it easier for banks to get involved.

The payments giant plans to announce a program Monday that will help financial institutions offer cryptocurrency trading, the company told CNBC. Mastercard will act as a “bridge” between Paxos, a crypto trading platform already used by PayPal to offer a similar service, and banks, according to the company. Mastercard will handle the regulatory compliance and security — two core reasons banks cite for avoiding the asset class.

Some consumers have been skeptical, too. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are known for volatility, and the world’s top digital assets have lost more than half of their value this year. The industry has suffered billions in hacks since January, coupled with multiple high-profile bankruptcies.

Mastercard’s chief digital officer said polling still shows demand for the asset, but roughly 60% of respondents said they would rather test the waters through their existing banks.

“There’s a lot of consumers out there that are really interested in this, and intrigued by crypto, but would feel a lot more confident if those services were offered by their financial institutions,” Mastercard’s chief digital officer, Jorn Lambert, told CNBC in an interview. “It’s a little scary to some people still.”

Large investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan have dedicated crypto teams but have largely avoided offering it to consumers. Just last week, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon called cryptocurrencies “decentralized Ponzis” at an Institute for International Finance event. If banks do embrace this Mastercard partnership model, it may mean more competition for Coinbase and other exchanges operating in the U.S.

The payments company said its role is to keep banks on the right side of regulation by following crypto compliance rules, verifying transactions and providing anti-money-laundering and identity monitoring services. Mastercard will pilot the product in the first quarter of next year, then “crank the handle” to expand in more geographies. Lambert declined to say which banks have signed up so far.

While the industry is living through a bear market or “crypto winter,” Lambert said more activity down the road could lead to more transactions and fuel Mastercard’s core business.

“It would be shortsighted to think that a little bit of a crypto winter heralds the end of it — we don’t see that,” he said. “As regulation comes in, there is going to be a higher degree of security available to the crypto platforms and we’ll see a lot of the current issues getting resolved in the quarters in the years to come.”

Mastercard and Visa have both been on partnership sprees in crypto. Mastercard has already teamed up with Coinbase on NFTs and Bakkt to let banks and merchants in its network offer crypto-related services. Last week, Visa partnered with FTX to offer crypto debit cards in 40 countries and has more than 70 crypto partnerships. American Express has said it’s exploring using its cards and network with stablecoins, which are pegged to the price of a dollar or another fiat currency.

Cryptocurrencies, ironically, were meant to disrupt banks and middlemen like Mastercard and Visa. Their underlying technology, blockchain, allows transactions to move without intermediaries. Still, Lambert said they haven’t seen industry pushback on their involvement. Crypto is on the “cusp of really going mainstream,” and still needs to team up with the incumbent players to get there, he said.

“It’s hard to believe that the crypto industry will truly go mainstream without embracing the financial industry as we know it,” Lambert said.

Technology

Nvidia down 30% from high as tech-led sell-off hits ‘Magnificent Seven’

Published

4 hours ago

March 10, 2025

admin

Nvidia down 30% from high as tech-led sell-off hits 'Magnificent Seven'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gives a keynote address at CES 2025, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, 2025.

Steve Marcus | Reuters

Nvidia has lost nearly a third of its value just two months after notching a fresh high.

The leading chipmaker slumped about 5% on Monday, building on last week’s losses as heavy selling continued across the tech sector. The popular artificial intelligence stock has shed about a fifth of its market cap since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The stock hit an intraday high of $153.13 on Jan. 7.

Tariff fears and growth concerns have rocked technology stocks, including Nvidia, over the past week, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropping more than 4%. The Nasdaq traded at a six-month low on Monday.

Many technology companies rely on parts and manufacturing overseas and new levies could push up prices. That has also sparked worries of a U.S. recession, which Trump did not rule out over the weekend.

Tesla led the declines among the “Magnificent Seven” names, plummeting more than 13%. The Elon Musk-backed electric vehicle company has plunged 16% over the past week and shed nearly 44% since Trump took office in January. The stock is also coming off its longest weekly losing streak in history as a public company.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Technology

Elon Musk’s X suffers multiple outages

Published

4 hours ago

March 10, 2025

admin

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Elon Musk’s social media platform X experienced several outages on Monday morning, leaving some users unable to load the site.

Nearly 40,000 users reported problems with the platform around 10 a.m. ET, according to the analytics platform Downdetector, which gathers data from users who spot glitches and report them to the service. Around 28,000 people were experiencing issues as of 11:30 a.m. ET.

When X resumed loading for users Monday afternoon, Musk said the company had suffered a “massive cyberattack.” Musk did not provide any evidence, and CNBC could not independently verify that a cyberattack took place.

“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk wrote in a post. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

X did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Musk acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022. The Tesla CEO slashed the company’s headcount by about 80% from 7,500 employees to 1,300 workers, and just 550 full-time engineers, by January 2023.

X has experienced several large-scale outages since Musk’s takeover. Users reported problems with the platform in December 2022 and with the site’s desktop app in July 2023, for instance.

The timing of the X outage couldn’t have been worse for NFL fans, who rely on the service for news updates. The first day of the NFL’s free agency tampering window began at 12 p.m. ET with the service down, sending fans searching for other options such as linear TV and Bluesky to get their news on player signings.

— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed reporting.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Watch: Elon Musk on X subscriptions: ‘Free speech isn’t exactly free it costs a little bit’

Technology

Bitcoin falls to November low under $80,000 on heightened recession fears

Published

4 hours ago

March 10, 2025

admin

Bitcoin falls to November low under ,000 on heightened recession fears

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Bitcoin dropped under the $80,000 level Monday, dragged by the continued selling pressure in the equities market.

The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last lower by 5% at $78,714.96, its lowest level since November, according to Coin Metrics.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

Bitcoin in the past day

Shares of companies linked to the crypto space also slid. Coinbase fell roughly 14%. Robinhood lost 17%, and bitcoin proxy play Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, declined 16%.

Bitcoin ETFs are coming off their fourth week in a row of outflows. They logged $867 million of outflows last week, bringing the four-week total to $4.75 billion, according to CoinShares. Continued bearishness pushed crypto prices even lower over the weekend, with bitcoin dropping sharply on Sunday evening to the $80,000 level for the first time since Feb. 28.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a U.S. bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile late last week, disappointing some investors. However, macro uncertainty was the key driver of the accelerated downward move Monday, after Trump over the weekend didn’t rule out the possibility of a recession in the U.S.

Absent a crypto-specific catalyst, macro concerns are likely to continue weighing on cryptocurrency prices in the near term. This week, the market will be watching for key economic indicators, including the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) Tuesday, the consumer price index on Wednesday and the producer price index slated for Thursday.

Although investors expect cryptocurrency prices are likely to pull back even more before making a run for a new record, their positive outlook on the year driven by regulatory tailwinds is still intact.