Visa plans to adopt crypto services / Grayscale holds 3.5% of BTC’s total supply, becomes largest public holder

Plus: Morgan Stanley, Sotheby's Auction House, and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. adopt crypto

Inside.com Part of   Network March 18, 2021

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Bitcoin (BTC) $58,317 Ethereum (ETH) $1,796 Cardo (ADA) $1.29 Global Market Cap       $1.79T Prices as of 3 p.m. ET

Visa joins PayPal and Mastercard in adopting cryptocurrency services on its platform. Appearing on Fortune’s "Leadership Next" podcast, Visa (V -0.96%) CEO Al Kelly explained the company's plan to enable buying and spending of cryptocurrency on its network. More: Visa will allow retail card users to buy bitcoin directly.  Visa is reportedly working to connect Visa infrastructure to bitcoin wallets so that bitcoin (BTC +8.11%) will be accepted by locations that already accept Visa. Currently, around 93% of small businesses accept Visa, while only 28% accept cryptocurrency. Visa’s cryptocurrency adoption follows similar plans announced by payment competitor Mastercard (MA -3.08%) in February. PayPal (PYPL -2.84%) implemented buying and selling of cryptocurrencies last year and recently decided to expand its crypto services. Kelly also expressed that Visa is currently working with 35 different fiat-backed cryptocurrencies, suggesting a possible move into stablecoins.

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Digital cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale is now the most significant public holder of bitcoin. According to the Bank of America, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust owns around 700,000 bitcoin (~$31 billion), accounting for 3.5% of Bitcoin’s total supply. More: Shares in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC +2.79%) track the Bitcoin market price, minus fees and expenses. Yesterday, Grayscale announced that it would launch five new digital currency investment trusts (BAT, LINK, MANA, FILE, LPT). Investment in these new trusts will be offered alongside their nine pre-existing trusts. With the SEC’s standing prohibition on Bitcoin ETFs, Grayscale is currently the only option for investors looking to gain Bitcoin exposure in their portfolio. Canada approved a Bitcoin ETF to be traded on the Toronto stock exchange in February. The inclusion of CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF (BTCG-UN.TO +2.78%) on the Toronto stock exchange marks the third cryptocurrency ETF traded in North America. Grayscale appears to be optimistic about the future of Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. The company has posted job applications for nine US-based ETF positions on LinkedIn.

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QUICK HITS: Invest, borrow, and spend, all in one place. Build your portfolio and automate it easily with this company. * Coinbase Pro users are now able to trade Cardano’s ADA (+9.27%). ADA’s price surged 25% following Coinbase’s announcement to adopt the token onto its platform. Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK +1.62%) joined in the $133M Series C funding round for crypto startup Fireblocks. Fireblocks builds security tools for cryptocurrency transfers and storage and has a current valuation of more than $900M. Sotheby's will be auctioning artist Pak’s NFT works following Christie’s $69M sale of artist Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” last week. Morgan Stanley will offer wealth management clients access to three bitcoin-related funds. Clients must have at least $2M in funds and an “aggressive risk tolerance” to participate. Bestow is making a big splash in the life insurance industry, bringing term life insurance into the modern age with clever tech and big data.* *This is sponsored content

Griffin McShane is a J.D. candidate currently living in Portland, Maine. He is a graduate of Providence College, where he studied both computer science and business. Griffin aspires one day to go to the moon and bring some of his altcoins along for the ride. Editor Charlotte Hayes-Clemens is an editor and writer based in Vancouver. She has dabbled in both the fiction and non-fiction world, having worked at HarperCollins Publishers and more recently as a writing coach for new and self-published authors. Proper semi-colon usage is her hill to die on.

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