Coinbase Partners With Mastercard To Democratize NFT Access

On Tuesday, Coinbase announced a strategic partnership with Mastercard, one of the world’s largest payments protocols.

In its announcement, the cryptocurrency exchange said that as part of its mission to increase economic freedom worldwide, it wants to expand access to the creator economy and enable more people to profit from their work.

Both Coinbase and Mastercard have agreed that facilitating access and trading of non-fungible tokens is a step toward that goal. However, both organizations admit that the current process of buying NFTs is complex, unwieldy, and confusing for the average user.

The announcement went on to say that Coinbase plans to simplify the NFT acquisition process. The company aims to improve the user experience to allow more people to join the NFT community.

Coinbase says that just as they helped millions of people access Bitcoin in an easy and trustworthy way for the first time, they aim to do the same for NFTs. That’s why they started working with Mastercard to classify NFTs as digital goods. The partnership will allow a wider group of consumers to buy NFTs. Soon, they plan to release a new way to pay with Mastercard.

Pioneering a newly announced joint venture with Mastercard, Coinbase recently launched its Coinbase NFT project. This peer-to-peer marketplace will make it easier to mint, buy, showcase and discover NFTs.

Coinbase NFT currently has a waitlist of more than 2 million people to access its platform, initially launching on Ethereum, supporting the gold standard in NFT transfer protocols.

Through the partnership with Mastercard, the joint venture would provide a better customer experience on the Coinbase NFT platform. The tandem also promises to find ways to expand access to the NFT ecosystem through Mastercard’s scale and global network.

Opera Launches First Web3 Internet Browser Built For Blockchain, Cryptos, and NFTs

Internet browser developer Opera on Wednesday announced a new browser solution designed and optimized for all things blockchain, including cryptocurrency transactions, non-fungible token (NFT) purchases, blockchain News filters, a nifty privacy clipboard feature, and a built-in non-custodial digital wallet for storing cryptocurrencies or NFTs.

According to Opera’s announcement, the name of the blockchain-powered web interface is the Crypto Browser Project. It’s currently available as a pilot program for Mac and Windows desktops. An Android-iOS version for mobile users is still in development. Opera has specially designed the novel browser to be compatible with blockchain technology.

In a statement, Opera announced that only a few web browsing experiences available today are built to put Web3 center stage and make blockchain technology easy to understand and use.

With the Crypto Browser Project, Opera has set out to change that. They are inviting the blockchain community to join in this mission starting today.

The crypto browser project initially supports a handful of blockchains for the beta release, namely: Ethereum, Nervos, Bitcoin, and Celo. The company said it plans to expand its blockchain offering as the project progresses.

One of the most exciting and unique features of this internet user interface is its native crypto wallet. This is an in-built program, so the users don’t need to download additional digital wallet extensions.

This provides additional security for browsers and wallets, soon released as open source.

Crypto.Com CEO Approves The Hack of Over 400 Customer Accounts

While Coinbase is expanding its features and services, crypto.com deals with a large-scale hack. On Wednesday, Kris Marszalek, CEO of Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, confirmed that 400 accounts were hacked earlier this week after several layers of the firm’s security measures were breached.

On Monday, Crypto.com suspended withdrawals on its platform after users reported unauthorized activity. Later, the program has asked users to log back into their accounts and reset their two-factor authentication.

After discovering the breach, Marszalek said the company quickly suspended withdrawals, fixed the issue, and returned online in about 13 to 14 hours. The company has reimbursed all the affected accounts on the same day, so no client has lost funds.

According to on-chain data, the hackers have stolen about $15 million in ether (4,600 ETH). They have laundered the stolen amount through Tornado Cash. However, Marszalek did not disclose how much the hackers stole in total. He said Crypto.com would release a post-mortem report within days, including the final amount.

Marszalek further emphasized that given the size of the business, these numbers are not particularly significant, and client funds are not at risk.

Bitcoin Moves Beyond $40-45k

Bitcoin has gained 0.4% in the past 24 hours to $41.9K, mainly ignoring the decline in US stock indices following Wednesday’s results.

Buying on declines below $41K is not yet a cause for optimism. A downtrend with lower highs has been underway for more than a week.

According to technical analysis, a pullback might follow this trend. But experts do not exclude reversal patterns when the bulls break through the downside resistance. In our case, the signal of an upside reversal would be stabilization above $45K.

Local positive dynamics in bitcoin and ether were offset by a pullback in Cardano and a further dip in Solana within the weekly trend.

While buying sentiment is strong among market participants on the stock market decline, bulls in cryptocurrencies are also not giving up psychologically significant support levels, now at $40K for Bitcoin and $3K for Ether. A consolidation below them could be a harbinger of an acceleration in fall.

The outcome of this confrontation today could be determined by the dynamics of the stock markets, where the key indices – the Nasdaq 100 and Dow Jones 30 – have corrected to their 200-day moving averages.