Polymarket Bags $70M From Vitalik Buterin & Founders Fund

Hi NoRamp Community,

Daily News:

1) State Street Opens Search for Digital Assets Head

2) Polymarket Bags $70M From Vitalik Buterin & Founders Fund

3) NFT Soccer Game Debuts On Oasys Blockchain

4) Eisen & Checkbook Partner to Streamline Disbursements

5) Visa to “Revolutionise The Card” With Array of New Product Launches

State Street Opens Search for Digital Assets Head:

• State Street, the US’s second-oldest bank, is seeking a leader for its digital assets solutions team to advance its crypto services. Despite its long history, the bank’s crypto involvement is recent and hampered by regulatory challenges.

• In 2021, State Street entered the institutional crypto trading market by partnering with Pure Digital, utilizing its foreign exchange technology. The new Head of Digital Asset Solutions will collaborate with top teams and report to the chief product officer, focusing on digital asset technology and institutional expertise.

• The role requires knowledge of State Street’s operations, distributed ledger technologies, tokenization, wallet technology, cryptocurrencies, and AI. The position will drive State Street Digital’s strategy from Boston or London. The bank also partnered with Lukka in 2021 to offer crypto asset fund administration services using Lukka’s data management solutions.

Polymarket Bags $70M From Vitalik Buterin & Founders Fund:

• Polymarket raised $70 million from two rounds: a previously undisclosed $25 million Series A led by General Catalyst, and a $45 million Series B led by Founders Fund with participation from Vitalik Buterin.

• Founders Fund partner Joey Krug highlighted Polymarket’s value in providing complementary news insights. Trading on Polymarket is banned in the US, but viewing forecasts is allowed. The announcement coincides with a proposed CFTC rule to ban derivatives on election bets, where Polymarket currently has $127 million placed on potential presidential election winners.

• Decentralized identity project Humanity Protocol raised $30 million in a seed round led by Kingsway Capital, with participation from Animoca Brands, Blockchain.com, and others. Valued at $1 billion, the project aims to secure digital identities using palm recognition technology, emerging as a competitor to Worldcoin.

  

  Source: Cointelegraph

NFT Soccer Game Debuts On Oasys Blockchain:

• Captain Tsubasa, a popular 80s Japanese manga and anime series, launched an NFT soccer game on the Web3-focused Oasys blockchain. Created by Mint Town and Blocksmith, the game was officially launched on January 12, 2023, and features governance tokens and various game modes including Rival, PvP, and Arena modes.

• Players can collect and develop NFT characters from the original series, form teams, and play in different game modes. The Genesis NFTs include additional features such as increased energy points for players. Mint Town CEO Hiroshi Kunimitsu highlighted the game’s integration into Oasys as a new way to experience the animated story, showcasing blockchain technology’s capabilities in enhancing interactive entertainment and gaming.

• The Captain Tsubasa series, first published in 1981 and adapted into an anime in 1983, has sold 90 million copies worldwide by 2023. Concurrently, the Web3 gaming sector is reviving with games like Immutable’s Guild of Guardians and Pixels achieving significant milestones, indicating a resurgence in GameFi activity as crypto prices recover.

Eisen & Checkbook Partner to Streamline Disbursements:

• Eisen and Checkbook partnered to create the Disbursement Hub, aimed at helping financial institutions streamline payment disbursements and comply with consumer protection regulations amidst evolving account closure laws.

• The Disbursement Hub integrates Eisen’s account offboarding solutions with Checkbook’s digital payment platform, enabling expedited and scalable mass disbursements while monitoring uncashed payments for escheatment compliance with state laws.

• This partnership reduces manual workflows, minimizes errors, and ensures regulatory compliance. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently fined Chime Financial for illegally delaying customer refunds during account closures, emphasizing the importance of compliance in financial services.

Visa to “Revolutionise The Card” With Array of New Product Launches:

• Visa unveiled several new digital products at the Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco, including Visa Flexible Credential, which lets users switch between debit, credit, rewards points, and BNPL during transactions. Currently live in Asia, it will launch in the US this summer through Affirm.

  • Visa introduced Tap to Everything, enabling NFC-enabled devices to accept payments, transfer funds, and confirm identities. The Payments Passkey Service, using biometric technology, will authorize online payments and integrate with Click to Pay and new cards. Visa’s Pay by Bank service will expand to the US, digitizing and streamlining account-to-account payments.

  • Visa also announced Visa Protect, an AI-driven fraud mitigation service for A2A payments, live in Latin America and piloted in the UK. Visa data tokens will give consumers control over their data use by merchants and financial institutions, allowing them to manage and revoke access via their banking app. These innovations aim to create more customized, convenient, and secure digital card experiences and will be rolled out later this year.

NoRamp:

NoRamp is building Web2’s favorite Web3 apps on our lightning-fast payment infra. Join our discord, dive into our our docs, or check out our website to learn more.