payments

Miami-Dade County Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez announced on Monday that his office has begun accepting Bitcoin for property tax payments, available both online and offline, but each transaction will be converted to U.S. dollars before the funds reach the county government. Fernandez made this announcement in a statement on the tax collector's website, calling it an additional option for property owners while not putting public funds into the asset. Taxpayers can choose the cryptocurrency option at checkout online or request it at the counter, then connect to a supported exchange account or digital wallet to authorize the payment.The office stated that a third-party system converts Bitcoin to U.S. dollars at the time of payment, so it never holds, invests, or manages any cryptocurrency. The office still receives the full amount due in U.S. dollars and records the transaction in standard payment reports, with county staff not needing to maintain a digital wallet. Fernandez stated that the government must keep up with the times and the needs of those it serves, and accepting Bitcoin as a payment option provides another way for property owners to pay taxes while continuing to offer traditional payment methods, without compromising the responsibility to protect taxpayer funds. The office did not disclose the name of the payment processor and did not specify whether there is a convenience fee for Bitcoin payments; online credit card and mobile wallet payments currently incur a non-refundable fee of 2.5%, with a minimum of $2.5.This move comes during Florida's property tax collection season. Miami-Dade County opened its 2026 tax bill on October 30 and urged property owners to pay by November 30 to lock in a 4% early payment discount, which drops to 3% in December, 2% in January, and 1% in February, with the full amount due by March. In 2021, Miami-Dade County Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins proposed a resolution to explore allowing residents to pay county taxes and fees with Bitcoin; previously, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez advocated for allowing residents to pay municipal fees and taxes with Bitcoin. The office stated that Miami-Dade County is one of the first government agencies in the U.S. to accept such payments, with Colorado accepting cryptocurrency for state tax payments since 2022, and Utah subsequently offering a similar option for individual income tax.

Square plans to complete a phased expansion of Bitcoin payment arrangements, with Lightning Network payments being opened to eligible sellers in its U.S. merchant network. Consumers can pay with Bitcoin, while merchants will default to receiving dollars but can choose to retain Bitcoin.Square will waive Bitcoin payment processing fees until the end of 2026, after which it plans to charge a uniform fee of 1%. Square's broader merchant network covers over 4 million merchants, but eligibility restrictions still exist, and actual adoption has not been independently quantified.

According to official news, Circle announced a multi-year partnership with the nonprofit organization Global Citizen, which will begin in 2027 by providing USDC payment options for suppliers participating in the Move Afrika music tour project starting in Rwanda. Circle will also provide financial education and technical training to local entrepreneurs and production staff to help them safely use digital payment tools.In addition, both parties will explore putting Global Citizen's community engagement and rewards program on-chain. Circle will also provide USDC funding to eligible charitable organizations through a new award established by both parties.

According to a report by the Korean News Agency, Shin Eun-seop, the director of the Electronic Financial Inspection Bureau of the Financial Supervisory Service of Korea, stated at a discussion held at the Financial Investment Education Institute in Yeouido, Seoul, that if stablecoins are used as a means of electronic payment, it is inevitable that the Electronic Financial Transactions Act will apply from the perspective of fairness with existing electronic payment methods, user protection, and payment settlement stability.

Circle CEO posted on the X platform that Circle has launched a brand new Agentic Managed Payments, upgraded and expanded the agent market, while providing simpler tools for agents to obtain funding.

Global stablecoin payment infrastructure service provider WasabiCard announced the formal signing of a strategic cooperation agreement with Japan Innovation Group (SOUSHIN Ltd). Both parties will integrate WasabiCard's technological advantages in global payment infrastructure, cross-border settlement, and stablecoin payments, along with Japan Innovation Group's resources in the local retail and trading ecosystem, to jointly promote the digital transformation of traditional retail enterprises in Japan and explore the application of stablecoin payments in physical business scenarios.As of now, WasabiCard has served over 700 corporate clients, with a cumulative card issuance exceeding 700,000 cards and a transaction volume exceeding 1 billion USD. The company's business covers more than 200 countries and regions worldwide and supports over 70 card BINs. This cooperation marks WasabiCard's further deepening of its market layout in Japan and accelerates the integration of stablecoin payments with the traditional retail business ecosystem.

Recently, Grok, under Elon Musk, has expanded support for Alipay and China UnionPay, allowing users to directly select payment options for mainland China and Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan regions on the subscription page. This adjustment coincides with Musk's integration of AI products, as The X Subscription launched in October has bundled Grok, Cursor, and X Premium into a unified subscription.The new package is divided into several tiers, with Plus priced at $8 per month and Premium at $30 per month. Premium includes Grok Bot, Cursor, and X premium membership benefits, with Grok and Cursor sharing weekly AI usage. Calling third-party models like Claude and GPT still requires additional payment. First-time subscribers to Premium can enjoy half-price for the first month, priced at $15. Some users have reported that using Alipay costs about 100 yuan.

The stablecoin infrastructure platform Interlace officially announced its ecological cooperation with the AI Agent platform X-Agent. The two parties will explore cooperation around AI Agents, stablecoin payments, and Web3 financial applications, promoting the deep integration of payment infrastructure and AI Agent application scenarios.As the first landing scenario of the cooperation, Interlace will participate in the Halloween-themed event "The Great Treat Hunt 2026" initiated by X-Agent, and collaborate with multiple ecological partners to explore innovative applications of AI Agents and Agentic Payment through community interaction and online AMAs. The event will be held from October 30 to November 6.X-Agent is committed to connecting Web3 social networks with autonomous AI Agents, supporting users in creating and deploying agents through natural language, with over 1 million certified users globally. Interlace focuses on issuing card infrastructure, helping exchanges, wallets, fintech platforms, and financial institutions quickly launch their own branded card projects through API and white-label solutions, with a cumulative issuance of over 10 million cards.In the future, both parties will continue to explore the collaborative scenarios of AI Agents and stablecoin payments, promoting the innovative development of autonomous interaction, automated settlement, and the Agent Economy.

Polygon Labs announced that it has integrated Solana into its Open Money Stack payment platform, allowing the network's enterprise clients to connect their dollar bank accounts directly to the global payment network through a single API framework. The platform supports enterprises in depositing funds from bank accounts, transferring funds across chains, and making payments to recipients, while also providing functionalities such as customer accounts and wallets, currency exchange, and routing payments to supported bank accounts, debit cards, cash services, and cryptocurrency wallets.Kira is one of the first clients to use the Solana integration, helping clients convert between dollars and stablecoins, send payments through banking channels, and pay overseas suppliers. Kira's CEO Edrizio De La Cruz stated that the company has been using Solana to transfer stablecoins, and collaborating with Polygon allows these transfers to be converted into dollars in their bank accounts when clients need to pay suppliers. Open Money Stack simultaneously connects Polygon, Ethereum, and TRON, which was integrated earlier this month.This integration occurred after Solana activated the Alpenglow consensus upgrade a week ago, which reduced the final confirmation time for transactions from approximately 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds. According to data from The Block, the total supply of dollar stablecoins has approached $290 billion, with USDT exceeding $182 billion and USDC nearing $76 billion. Vibhu Norby, Chief Product Officer of the Solana Foundation, stated that the volume of stablecoin transactions processed by Solana in 2026 has exceeded $5.5 trillion. Earlier this month, Polygon also completed the acquisition of Coinme, obtaining money transmission licenses and exemptions covering 48 states in the United States.

Android Authority reported on October 27 that it discovered a developing Overseas QR payments setting in Google Wallet version 26.42.1003171897. The "Learn more" link within this setting points to the Google Wallet support page, where this feature is referred to as Traveler QR.Google explains on the support page that relevant options will automatically appear when the phone detects that the user is in a covered area. Currently, the only explicitly named destination on the page is Singapore, corresponding to the Alipay+ partner network. Android Authority notes that Alipay is primarily used in China, while Alipay+ connects various payment systems across Southeast Asia. This discovery comes from the disassembly of the application installation package, and the features that appear in the disassembly may not necessarily make it into the public version. There has also been no official announcement regarding the release of Traveler QR yet.

According to The Defiant, Australian bank Westpac announced that starting in December, it will set a monthly limit of 10,000 Australian dollars on payments involving cryptocurrency for its customers, and it will not provide exemptions or arrangements for higher limits.Westpac also stated that withdrawals from cryptocurrency exchanges to Westpac accounts are not affected by this adjustment and will continue to be processed as before.

According to Cointelegraph, Stellar has launched Project Thruput, a new execution model that has gone live on FutureNet. Early benchmarks show that the model achieves 7.02 million payments per second by scaling across multiple machines.

According to an official report from Cointelegraph, the competition among cryptocurrency exchanges is undergoing transformation, with the industry's focus gradually shifting from trading data to users' broader daily financial needs. During TOKEN2049, Gate officially launched a one-stop financial service application, Gate Money, to lead this new competitive landscape.Dr. Han, the founder and CEO of Gate, pointed out that Gate Money aims to break down the barriers between traditional investments and daily consumption. It integrates users' named bank accounts, fiat currencies, cryptocurrency assets, and traditional financial holdings such as stocks and gold into the same account system, combined with the Gate Card that supports Apple Pay and Google Pay, as well as a Visa co-branded card, granting assets instant consumption capabilities. It also integrates various fiat currency deposits and withdrawals, on-chain transfers, instant exchanges, and up to 3.6% annualized wealth management, achieving a one-stop experience for asset management, appreciation, and payments.While expanding its business, Gate always places compliance and transparency at its core. Currently, the platform has obtained compliance qualifications in Malta, Dubai, Australia, and the United States; the platform's total reserves amount to $8.688 billion, with a comprehensive reserve ratio of 118.49%. The launch of Gate Money marks Gate's acceleration towards upgrading into a comprehensive financial ecosystem that encompasses daily payments and comprehensive asset management.

According to First Financial News, the Korea Communications Commission (KMCC) has determined that Google and Apple violated the Telecommunications Business Act by enforcing in-app payments, and has decided to impose a total fine of 63.7 billion Korean Won on the two companies. Among them, Google was fined 42.9 billion Korean Won, and Apple was fined 20.81 billion Korean Won.The regulatory agency also issued a corrective order, requiring both companies to modify their relevant business procedures. This penalty comes about three years after South Korea first announced its sanction plans in 2023.

According to data from paymentscan.xyz, the monthly transaction volume of crypto cards has shown signs of slowing down after continuous growth. The total transaction volume for September was approximately $1.231 billion, setting a new peak for this phase; while as of October, the cumulative total is about $1.15 to $1.2 billion, making it unlikely to achieve month-over-month growth for the entire month.Among them, leading projects such as RedotPay, EtherFi, and KAST have all experienced a month-over-month decline in October. According to data from approximately 30 card projects tracked, the cumulative transaction volume of crypto cards has reached $13.69 billion, but the recent monthly momentum has weakened.

The U.S. SEC filings show that SpaceX has signed a binding primary financing lease commitment with Apollo Global Management.According to the agreement, Apollo will purchase GPU clusters and related equipment and lease them to SpaceX, with the total principal payments under the related lease arrangements expected to reach $40 billion.

Bitcoin News posted on the X platform that Lightning Labs has opened Wavelength to all users. The AI agent can autonomously send and receive payments on the Bitcoin mainnet via the Lightning Network and L402 without requiring manual approval for each transaction.The AI agent can use its payment API to call fees, purchase data, and trade with other agents, with single transaction fees as low as less than 1 cent; developers can integrate payment functionality into their applications without running a Lightning Network node, managing channels, or raising liquidity. This self-hosted toolkit supports independent on-chain exits, with an initial limit of 300,000 satoshis per wallet, and the Lightning Network payments incur a service fee of 0.25%. Wavelength is currently still in the Alpha stage and plans to support stablecoins.