The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | Jan 21st

By Gaia Lamperti

The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements. For Prime subscribers only.

The Big Story

This week, Mastercard struck a deal with crypto exchange platform Coinbase that will enable users to use Mastercard credit and debit cards to make purchases on its upcoming NFT marketplace. This means that it will become possible to purchase an NFT with fiat currency without having to buy cryptocurrency first.

“Expanding the audience for NFTs allows this burgeoning market to support more creators and could spark the next evolution of digital commerce,” wrote Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s Executive VP of Digital Asset and Blockchain Products, in a blog on the company’s website. “Getting more people involved safely and securely is perhaps the best way to help the NFT market thrive.”

The partnership is the latest in the recent flurry of deals between payment and cryptocurrency giants, and follows Mastercard’s acquisition of CipherTrace, a cryptocurrency intelligence company, to help bolster the safety of NFT purchases.

James Booth, VP Head of Partnerships (EMEA) at payment infrastructure company PPRO, commented: “This year we can expect to see an uptake in this market as more consumers enter, but not necessarily a boom or massive influx. The industry is maturing and the applications that are being built are very exciting, especially the progress that we are seeing in the Decentralised Finance market (DeFi). New products and companies that provide consumers with increased value, when compared to high street financial institutions, are entering the market with easy to use tools.”

“The news that Mastercard is working to classify NFTs as digital goods is encouraging as this will also push local payment methods to adopt a similar approach, which will ultimately give consumers more choice at the checkout,” he added. “Allowing people to directly purchase NFTs with cards will give the everyday consumer access to this growing industry and help it develop into the mainstream.”

Coinbase first announced its NFT marketplace, called Coinbase NFT, in October, describing it as a platform that will let users trade, sell, and mint NFTs. The marketplace has not gone live, but it does have a waitlist to gain early access.

Deals of the week

• Bitcoin platform, Shakepay secures $44 million CAD in Series A
• M2P Solutions raises $56 million in a round led by Insight Partners
• Personetics announces $85 million in growth funding from Thoma Bravo
• Vinter, Europe’s index provider for crypto assets, raises $3.4 million
• Gr4vy secures $15 million Series A to accelerate rapid growth
• WealthKernel announced raising $7 million in a Series A+ funding round
• Coinhouse raises €15 million to become the first European cryptobank

Be on the lookout for

Even Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is planning on implementing new NFT features across its platforms, including allowing users to use NFTs as profile pictures, to mint new NFTs, and even access a marketplace to buy and sell these digital tokens. If Zuckerberg’s Meta follows through with these plans, this will mark the largest effort to date to bring NFTs into the mainstream.

Events & Appointments

• IBSi is pleased to announce its association with the upcoming Future Digital Banking Summit SEA 2022 as a Research Partner. The virtual event is scheduled for 27th January 2022 and will bring together 200 + Banking professionals, FinTech entrepreneurs and Investors.