Crypto.com Expanding Debit Card to Australia After Becoming Visa Principal Member

Crypto.com Expanding Debit Card to Australia After Becoming Visa Principal Member

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) – A few days before an energy crisis hit Texas, the state’s chief energy regulator issued an order to prioritize “human needs.” It sounded like a no-brainer: Divert natural gas supplies to homes and critical businesses and away from everything else deemed a lower priority.But more than 100 emails obtained by Bloomberg reveal how the move also sowed confusion as energy suppliers and Texas regulators struggled to determine which power stations should get preferential treatment as millions were plunged into darkness. The disarray meant some facilities that could provide power to the grid lost gas supply when they needed it most.One power plant that serves half a million customers saw gas supplies cut because of the way a pipeline company interpreted the state’s order. Utilities – and even some of the state’s own regulators – scrambled to figure out whether gas should flow to so-called cogeneration plants that provide both heat and power, because they typically serve industrial users but are also capable of supplying the grid. Gas producers, meanwhile, complained about their power being cut, choking off their own operations.“This may not be a cut and dry determination,” Mark Evarts, a director at the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulator, wrote in an email the morning of Feb. 14.The emails received by the commission show how woefully unprepared Texas was for the extreme weather and ensuing energy crisis, even though it has to contend almost yearly with hurricanes, drought and high winds. The confusion arose despite federal energy regulators saying in a report following a cold snap in Texas a decade ago that state regulators should clarify the priority they give to gas customers.Similar situations are likely to be occur as climate change is expected to bring more natural disasters and threats to power generation. While the recent experience in Texas highlights how the state is unusually dependent on power for heating, with almost two-thirds of homes equipped with electric heating, other parts of the U.S. are expected to follow that trend.The Railroad Commission emails obtained by Bloomberg are among the first state records regarding the February storm and subsequent outages made available by public information requests.The commission said in a statement that its orders were “a proactive step to prioritize natural gas deliveries for human needs,” including by elevating the priority of gas-fired power generation. State grid operator The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also known as Ercot, said it was “appreciative” of the Railroad Commission’s orders. The state’s Public Utility Commission said it was “premature” to discuss individual factors that may have played a role in the outages.“In a crisis like this, there’s always some fog of war that leads to some misunderstanding,” said James Coleman, an associate professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law in Dallas, who focuses on energy.As the powerful cold blast and sweeping blackouts pushed electricity prices to historic levels in mid-February, gas supplies grew scarce as weather curtailments limited production. But gas producers also struggled to maintain output when their own operations lost electricity, leaving them unable to thaw frozen infrastructure and pressurize gas so it could be sent through pipelines.The Railroad Commission instituted emergency orders on the evening of Feb. 12, just about 48 hours before the Texas power grid came close to total collapse. The agency prioritized sending gas to residences, hospitals, schools and churches that could directly generate heat from the fuel. Direct use of natural gas for heat is more efficient than using it to make electricity, but well over half the state’s homes rely on the power grid for heat.Second priority went to power plants serving “human needs customers” – but officials at the commission quickly learned that it wasn’t always easy to figure out which facilities met that description.The Railroad Commission fielded questions from gas utilities trying to figure out if they were allowed to send supplies to cogeneration facilities. At one point, Ercot asked the commission for help keeping cogeneration units online after some had faltered due to a loss of gas supplies.“I would like to reach out to the pipelines and see if we can assure them that these units are exporting to the grid and that we do need them in order to restore electric service,” Woody Rickerson, the grid operator’s vice president of grid planning and operations, said in an email the evening of Feb. 15, the same day Ercot had called for rotating outages.In the early hours of Feb. 17, when millions were still without power, a managing director at Starwood Energy Group included the Railroad Commission on a message pleading for its gas supplier, Oneok WestTex, to restore service to the Quail Run Power Plant “as quickly as possible.” Oneok had cut supplies earlier that night, citing the commission’s order and leaving the gas-fired plant unable to serve its roughly 500,000 customers.“In these unprecedented times, I am sure you share our goal to support the restoration of the electric grid as quickly as possible,” Starwood’s Jeffrey Delgado wrote in an email at 3:02 a.m. local time.Oneok said in a statement this week that it followed the commission’s order and paused service only to “interruptible customers until they could establish they were serving human needs.” Once that was confirmed, the company said it shuttled gas to those facilities.It wasn’t just questions over the term “human needs” that created confusion. Eagleclaw Midstream, a private equity-backed pipeline company in the Permian Basin, said it needed special permission from the Railroad Commission so it wouldn’t face “a frivolous claim for significant monetary damages” for canceling an existing supply contract in order to send gas to a power plant in Odessa instead.“The issue is that we do not have the luxury of time!” Eagleclaw Chief Executive Officer Jamie Welch wrote in a message on Feb. 17. “Minutes and hours count.”But granting companies the ability to reroute supplies was the exact purpose of the order. Welch said this week that the commission responded promptly and the company was supplying the Odessa power plant within a matter of “a few hours.”Gas producers without electricity for their operations, meanwhile, frantically messaged well coordinates to regulators in the hopes of getting their electricity stored.“If I can get power back to [West Texas] we can supply 8,000 Mcfd+ back to the system,” one gas producer said in a message sent to the Railroad Commission by the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers on Feb. 17.“Targa can handle gas, but Navitas, WTG and DCP are all shut in or curtailed,” another said, referring to pipelines. “This is where the focus should be. We are doing everything we can to get our wells back online, but doesn’t do any good if the gas companies can’t move the gas.”It’s not yet clear how much of the shortfall in gas supplies to power plants was due to power outages versus well freeze-offs and other weather-related curtailments versus a lack of electricity.There might have been an easy fix to this problem: filling in a form that would grant certain companies the status of being critical to the grid and allow them to keep receiving power. But for much of the week, not even Railroad Commission Chairman Christi Craddick was aware that option existed.“I didn’t know that was an opportunity,” Craddick told lawmakers during a hearing on Feb. 26.The email exchanges show that it wasn’t until Feb. 20, after the worst of the crisis had passed, that Ercot sent a link to the application for critical-load status to the Railroad Commission, which then passed it on to more than 70 representatives of energy companies.“There’s still just so much we don’t know about,” said Coleman of Southern Methodist University. “A lot went wrong all at once, and I think that’s a clue that the solutions we should be looking at are network-wide things.”(Updates with federal regulators’ recommendations in fifth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Crypto.com becomes a principal member of the Visa network

Crypto.com is now the latest cryptocurrency exchange and payment service to join the Visa network.

According to a press statement issued on Wednesday, Crypto.com has inked a global partnership with the credit/debit card payment giant which includes becoming a principal member of Visa’s network in Australia.

As part of the press release, Crypto.com revealed that the collaboration with Visa was in line with the company’s efforts to expand the reach of its crypto Visa card.

Crypto.com’s Visa card is already used in more than 30 countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, as well as nations in Europe and across the Asia-Pacific.

Crypto.com plans to begin direct issuance of its Visa card in the country, and the company says it will use its presence in Australia to pursue greater market penetration for its card service across the world.

Apart from its physical Visa card product, Crypto.com will also reportedly begin to issue virtual cards within Europe.

Commenting on the Visa partnership, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek remarked:

“Signing the global partnership with Visa and becoming a principal member with the world’s leader in digital payments affirms our commitment to accelerate the world’s transition to cryptocurrency.”

As part of the official communique, the company also announced the rollout of its fiat lending program, dubbed “Spending Power.” With this new product, Crypto.com Visa cardholders will be able to use the cryptocurrency balance in their wallet as loan collateral and spend fiat in merchant platforms that support Visa payments.

Earlier in March, Crypto.com launched a $200 million crypto investment fund to support startups in the industry. Crypto.com is also sponsoring the Aston Martin Formula 1 racing team as the British carmaker marks its return to the F1 circuit after a 61-year hiatus.

From Bitcoin to NFTs, why institutions are adopting crypto

Opinion

Alternative Lending

Digital Banking

Savings and Investment

Cryptocurrencies are increasingly becoming an accepted part of the financial landscape with institutions now realising they must adopt them, writes Ivan Soto-Wright

Image source: Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

The global perception of cryptocurrency has shifted dramatically in recent years — once being seen as a fringe investment class, they are now known for having a multitude of use cases including in low-cost remittances, peer-to-peer lending, and high interest savings accounts.

With cryptocurrencies increasingly becoming an accepted part of the financial landscape, institutions are realising they must adopt this young asset-class, or risk losing relevance. Broadly speaking, I believe the reason for increased adoption amongst businesses can be split into the following three camps.

Surge in consumer popularity and understanding

Until very recently, only those with a strong understanding of the underlying technology felt comfortable participating in crypto in any meaningful way. However, as functionality and awareness has grown, so too has adoption and, in many instances, value.

This came to a climax last year, when — against the backdrop of macroeconomic uncertainty — Bitcoin’s explosive rise in price drew an enormous amount of attention from the press and public, making the year something of an inflection point in terms of global interest.

The recent surge in consumer interest can also be credited to prominent public figures endorsing cryptocurrencies, as well as firms such as Mastercard, Tesla and JP Morgan, all of whom have signalled strong interest in the space. Last month, Mastercard announced that it will “start supporting select cryptocurrencies” and create “more opportunities for shoppers and merchants…to transact in an entirely new form of payment.”

Around the same time, Tesla also announced that it will soon accept Bitcoin as payment (shortly after adding $1.5bn worth of BTC to its treasury). Naturally, these were widely viewed as endorsements for the idea that this emerging asset class will play a major part in disrupting the traditional financial system.

This heightened awareness has led to a surge in interest which, in turn, has put pressure on businesses to offer services allowing their users access to crypto.

Say if a consumer is looking for a new bank account – all other things being equal, are they going to choose the option that offers crypto exposure, or the one without? While not everyone will immediately want to explore the crypto space, we’re increasingly seeing that products and services that incorporate crypto are more attractive to consumers.

A focus on security and speed

One of the major benefits of blockchain technology is its ability to enforce systemic transparency, making it very difficult for fraud to go undetected. The open and decentralised nature of public blockchains means that transactions are tracked from start to finish, network-wide, removing any doubt around the provenance of funds, as well as removing the need for an intermediary. Additionally, chargebacks are technically impossible, as all transactions are final and immutable.

A key pain point for businesses operating within the traditional financial system is that money transfers typically take hours or days, are labour-intensive, and expensive. Blockchain technology can cut transaction times from days to seconds, and fees from dollars or even hundreds of dollars to fractions of a cent

For businesses in the financial services space, speed and safety are both paramount — yet they don’t often go hand-in-hand. For an industry that largely relies on outdated, slow and clunky legacy systems, the infrastructure that MoonPay and others offer can be a game-changer. Speed and costs can be lowered without compromises in security, all to the benefit of their users.

Access to emerging markets and trends

Given most cryptocurrencies are hosted on decentralised ledgers, users don’t need a traditional bank account to be able to access or engage with them — access is open. Many perhaps don’t see this as an important differentiation point in more developed economies like the U.K or U.S. where banking access is prevalent, but the reality is that an estimated 1.7 billion people are classed as ‘unbanked’ worldwide and don’t have the opportunities that we are so fortunate to have.

Crypto is fundamentally open and accessible, and as it becomes more mainstream, businesses can begin to offer much-needed services to markets that have previously been out of reach.

But crypto is more than just a way for businesses to enter new markets it also allows them to future-proof their offerings and increases agility in catering to emerging consumer trends. Recently, a number of entirely new types of marketplaces have emerged – a prime example being NFTs.

NFTs (non-fungible tokens) act as a digital certificate of ownership for any digital asset, such as a Tweet, piece of artwork, or an album, and have very quickly become something resembling a mainstream financial product. Businesses are already starting to cater to this surge in interest in the NFT space.

Taco Bell, for example, just had tremendous success with its ‘NFTacoBell’ collection of taco gifs, with prices reaching more than $3,600 per gif.In the art space, the first digital-only art auction by Christie’s sold its first digital piece of artwork for £50m — people are seeing real value in these digital products. Businesses that have been quick to integrate crypto offerings into their platforms have seen significant surges in revenue, while those that have been slower to adopt may, to some degree, be falling behind.

We’re on the precipice of a new financial age where crypto is a central pillar.

Businesses, large and small, have already started to embrace this new technology, engage with new markets, serve the needs of changing consumer mindsets and ultimately become more profitable. As is always the way, those who are slow on the uptake risk missing out in the long term.