| Bitcoin | $19,211 | 7 day: +0.1% | | Ethereum | $596 | 7 day: -1.2% | | All crypto | $570B | 7 day: -1.8% | | Bitcoin dominance | 62.6% | 7 day: -0.2% | Prices as of 10 a.m. EST
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Visa (NYSE:V) will allow Circle Internet Financial to process USD Coin (USDC) payments. - The rare agreement between the credit card giant and Jeremy Allaire's payments company will allow Circle to support Visa's 60M credit card merchants and integrate software for its ERC-20 token, USD Coin (USDC).
- According to a Forbes report, Visa will not custody USDC. Once Circle completes Visa's Fast Track program next year, Visa has tentatively agreed to issue credit cards which allow businesses to send/receive USDC directly.
- More than 25 crypto companies including Fold and Cred (Cred is now bankrupt) were participants in Visa's Fast Track program.
- According to Visa's Head of Crypto, Cuy Sheffield, the partnership will result in the first corporate card allowing businesses to accept USDC as a method of payment.
- Last year, Circle received a $40M investment in Anchorage, a cryptocurrency "vault" for institutions, and patented a method to create digital currency on a centralized computer using blockchain.
Forbes 
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Status Research & Development GmBH has requested courts dismiss a class action accusing it of selling unregistered Status Network Tokens (SNT) worth over $100M. - A proposed class action filed in Florida alleges that the Swiss-based company Status Research, and its co-founders Jarrad Hope and Carl Bennetts, conducted an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO) in June 2017. During the ICO, the defendants offered and sold Status Network Token or Status (SNT) and made approximately $100M from the sale.
- On Dec. 4, Status' legal counsel filed a motion to dismiss, stating that plaintiff Deutsche did not participate in the ICO and purchased tokens from foreign exchange, which is not a party to the lawsuit and outside the territorial limits of U.S. securities laws.
- In the motion, Status' attorneys indicated that the pleading asserted against the defendants included major defects and hence required dismissal.
- The original complaint against the defendants was filed in April 2020, stating that the $100M was unregistered and thus illegal, demanding a return of investors' money plus damages. Deutsche, who has substituted as the plaintiffs since Jul. 27, 2020, filed the complaint's third amendment on Nov. 12.
- On Aug. 3, counsel to harmed Status investors submitted a letter in U.S. District Court Southern District of New York revealing the exhaustive measures taken to locate Hope and Bennets out of fear that the defendants "may attempt to disappear."
- The defendant's attorney reportedly said that the "lawsuit should not have been filed" in the first place.
- Hope and Bennets remain socially active via Twitter and LinkedIn, but their physical whereabouts are unknown.
Law360
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BlockFi will launch a new bitcoin reward credit card in partnership with Visa and Evolve Bank. - High-yield cryptocurrency savings provider BlockFi is partnering with Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), Deserve, and Evolve Bank to release a credit card offering bitcoin rewards for purchases.
- According to Reuters, the card allows users to earn a standard 1.5% cashback, which is then converted to bitcoin and added to the user's BlockFi account every month.
- The annual fee for the card is $200.
- BlockFi opened a waitlist for early adopters of its credit card, scheduled for release sometime in 2021. It is available to only U.S-based consumers.
- BlockFi announced a $250 bonus reward for users who make purchases worth more than $3,000. Cards will ship by Q2 2021.
Reuters
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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the company will not leave the U.S. after all. Company executives have been complaining about lawsuits regarding its unregistered coin offering for months, threatening to leave the U.S. due to a "hostile" regulatory environment. - In October 2020, Chris Larsen, Ripple's Executive Chairman, said that leaving the U.S. as a headquarters seemed inevitable due to the "regulatory uncertainty," perhaps a euphemism for lawsuits against Larsen and Garlinghouse for conducting an alleged illegal securities offering.
- During a recent interview with CNN's Julia Chatterley dated, Brad Garlinghouse reversed his position, saying he wanted to see what regulatory changes occur under President-elect Joe Biden's administration.
- Ripple recently opened an office in Dubai.
- Ripple's CEO stated that 95% of Ripple's customers are non-U.S. residents, while U.S. residents account for just 5% of its total clientele. He did not clarify how many U.S. investors purchased XRP throughout his ICO, nor how many U.S. investors own XRP.
- According to Garlinghouse, there is a lack of clarity surrounding Ripple (XRP). The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has clarified that bitcoin and ether are not securities in their current form.
- XRP is dealing with various dilemmas starting from how its ICO occurred. Contrary to common belief, Ripple co-founders David Schwartz, Arthur Britto, and Jed McCaleb did not conduct an ICO, but "offered" approximately 80B XRP tokens, which were sold to users later. The company stays adamant that it did not create XRP tokens, but was merely "offering" them, despite being its largest holder. According to the Financial Times, Ripple is having a hard time trying to find essential use-cases for XRP tokens.
YouTube
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- The assembly of a province in the northwestern region of Pakistan called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa passed a resolution concerning cryptocurrency mining, demanding the federal government legalize the industry.
- Blockchain analytics provider Ciphertrace warned of fake cryptocurrency browser extensions pretending to be MetaMask on Chrome, which can steal user funds via phishing attacks.
- South Korean exchange Upbit announced a freeze on cryptocurrency withdrawals that started Nov. 28.
- A new research paper published on Dec. 2, from researchers at the University of Bern, states that Ripple (XRP) consensus protocol depends on four primary conditions, violation of any one of which could result in system failure.
- Market index provider S&P Dow Jones Indices will launch a cryptocurrency asset index in collaboration with Lukka, a New York City-based crypto-asset software and data company.
- Swiss investment product provider Valour launched a bitcoin exchange-traded product called "Bitcoin Zero" with no management fees. It was listed on the Nordic Growth Market stock exchange on Dec. 3.
- Grayscale Bitcoin Trust's (OTCQX:GBTC) premium to NAV jumped about 10% as bitcoin broke its all-time high, while the premium for the Ethereum Trust (OTCQX:ETHE) doubled over the past weeks, even after announcing a 9-for-1 share split.
- Canadian miner Hive Blockchain (TSX.V:HIVE) posted quarterly revenue growth of 8% to $13M with net income per share of $0.03.
- Ebang International (NASDAQ:EBON) announced a new technology licensing agreement granting the Chinese crypto hardware provider access to "ASICBoost," a process that increases bitcoin mining performance by 20%.
- TAAL (CNSX:TAAL), a fork of bitcoin controlled by Calvin Ayre and his associates, reported a net loss of $5.9M on sales of $245,000 over nine months. Q3 stakes dropped 32% from $11.6M in 2019 to $7.8M in 2020. TAAL is the only publicly traded BitcoinSV company.
- The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) activated its "SWIFT GPI instant" connection in the U.K., allowing customers of Lloyds Banking Group to make cross-border payments almost instantly via the U.K. Faster Payments system.
- The SEC announced on Dec. 3, that the Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology, or "FinHub," would become a stand-alone office under the leadership of Valerie A. Szczepanik. She will act as its first director and report to the SEC Chairman directly.
- Spotify (NYSE:SPOT) posted a job offer on the Lever platform for an Associate Director of its Payment Strategy & Innovation Team who would work on Spotify's activity with Diem (f.k.a. Libra) and other digital assets.
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 |  | Written and curated by wide-eyed bitcoin watcher since $1, Aaron Wise. Streaming headline junkie, Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, 2017 founder of Cryptocurrency Newsfeed. Temporarily based in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Alexander Huls is a Toronto-based journalist. He has contributed articles about true crime and pop culture to The New York Times, Men's Health, Popular Mechanics, and other fine publications. Follow him on Twitter @alxhuls. | |
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