BitPay has unveiled several ways for investors to purchase gold using Shiba Inu and other cryptocurrencies. The payment service provider enables users to buy gold from reputable dealers or use the BitPay card to make purchases with any Mastercard-accepting merchant. BitPay's solution caters to crypto investors who want to diversify their portfolios with precious metals, without needing fiat currency.

Fresh data from Glassnode demonstrates that Bitcoin's (BTC) Lightning Network is significantly cheaper to use than legacy payment networks.  The median fee rate, or the cost of sending value across the Lightning Network, is 0.0029%, 1,000 times cheaper than that of MasterCard of Visa payment processors. 

The Mastercard Artist Accelerator, which harnesses blockchain technology to help emerging artists forge their own paths in the digital economy.

Mastercard has announced a new artist accelerator program that is non-fungible token (NFT)-gated and only accessible to holders of its Mastercard Music Pass NFT. The limited-edition NFT is free until the end of the month and was created in collaboration with Polygon, offering free access to educational materials, unique AI tools, and other experiences. The program was designed to help users better understand and trust how blockchain and digital assets are used, and to connect people and build communities around shared universal passions. Mastercard has been a long-time supporter and early adopter of Web3 technologies and has already selected five artists from different genres globally to participate in the program. This development comes less than two months after both Mastercard and Visa announced that they would be delaying all new crypto and blockchain partnerships until improved market conditions and a more established regulatory framework.

Mastercard, the world’s leading payment technology company, has announced plans to settle transactions for a stablecoin wallet in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Mastercard has migrated its app to the Hedera Hashgraph network, a blockchain-based platform that provides high-speed and secure transactions. The move is expected to provide Mastercard with greater flexibility and control over its operations, while also helping to drive adoption and usage of blockchain technology.

Mastercard will reportedly power the card for Australian stablecoin firm Stables, as announced by mutual partner Marqeta in a March 20 press release.

Global payment provider Mastercard is launching a stablecoin digital wallet integration with the Australian stablecoin platform Stables.

Bybit is launching a Mastercard-powered debit card, allowing users to pay with their crypto assets.

The third most visited cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Bybit, has announced the release of a debit card issued by Moorwand and powered by the Mastercard (NYSE: MA) network.