payment

Cointelegraph Research's latest report shows that the United Nations Development Programme is applying blockchain technology to the construction of public digital infrastructure, focusing on addressing issues of transparency, collaborative efficiency, and trustworthy data sharing in government systems.The report "New Tech, New Partners" outlines 42 practical cases covering areas such as digital payments, financial inclusion, climate funding, data governance, and community investment, among which 7 focus on digital identity and data systems, primarily distributed in developing economies in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. The research points out that UNDP adopts a "pilot---validate---scale" approach, collaborating with governments, developers, and local businesses to first implement small-scale projects and then gradually promote them based on actual results. It also emphasizes a "platform-agnostic" architecture to maintain system openness and interoperability. Furthermore, the report highlights the importance of governance and risk control, stating that the application of blockchain in public systems requires accompanying privacy protection, regulatory frameworks, and audit mechanisms to prevent data misuse and smart contract risks. Overall, blockchain is extending from financial scenarios to public governance infrastructure, becoming one of the important technological options for digital transformation in various countries.

At the Future Investment Initiative summit held in Miami, Trump stated that Bitcoin has significant influence and that the United States should maintain a leading position in this field. He pointed out that an increasing number of users wish to use virtual assets, especially Bitcoin, for payments, and that the United States needs to be at the forefront of related development trends.

Guy Wuollet, a partner at a16z crypto, stated in Fortune's Crypto Playbook that the crypto industry is maturing and is currently in the "shirt era," not yet fully formalized but having moved beyond the early stages. He pointed out that the dominant trend in the current crypto industry is Wall Street's rapid adoption of blockchain, with traditional financial giants like BlackRock and Fidelity not only offering Bitcoin ETFs but also embracing blockchain technology in the areas of stablecoins and tokenized stocks.Wuollet also noted that the integration of blockchain and AI is laying the groundwork for on-chain agency commerce. He mentioned that a large number of talents from the consumer AI sector are entering the crypto industry because they believe that the first agency payments will occur on-chain, and Stripe also discussed agency payments in its annual letter. Regarding the issue of fragmentation that different payment standards might cause, Wuollet believes that AI models are good at understanding different systems, so this is unlikely to slow down the adoption rate.

Web3 asset data platform RootData recently organized Coinbase's business partner network in the cryptocurrency field, systematically presenting its complete business landscape from institutional custody services to on-chain developer ecosystem building.Coinbase's customer base shows a significant trend towards institutionalization:BlackRock uses Coinbase Prime as its main custodian for its Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs;Franklin Templeton issues tokenized money market funds on the Base network;Traditional banks such as Citibank and JPMorgan have also connected to Coinbase's infrastructure, laying out stablecoin payments and fiat currency clearing;Payment giants like Stripe, PayPal, and Shopify complete merchant-side settlement integration through USDC on Base and Coinbase Commerce.On the supplier side, Coinbase tends to adopt robust blockchain technology services:Optimism provides the underlying architecture of the OP Stack for Base, Chainlink is responsible for price feeds, and Safe handles account abstraction;The compliance layer is jointly formed by three leading monitoring agencies: Chainalysis, Elliptic, and TRM Labs;KYC verification is handled regionally by several service providers such as Jumio and Onfido.In terms of the developer ecosystem, Coinbase gathers AI Agent customers through the CDP (Developer Platform), with Firecrawl, Fereai, Questflow, and others achieving on-chain autonomous payments via the x402 protocol or CDP server wallets, marking Coinbase's extension towards "AI payment infrastructure." Related compilation: 【Coinbase Crypto Business Partner Compilation (continuously updated)】Cryptocurrency projects actively showcasing their partner networks has become a key way to enhance transparency and market trust. It is reported that RootData welcomes Web3 project parties to claim data and continues to track and open more project business relationship disclosure channels. The platform has released three consecutive issues of the cryptocurrency project ecosystem map, nominating Web3 ecosystem partners of upstream clients such as Visa, Stripe, and Coinbase.If you wish to nominate your project in future ecosystem maps, please fill out the 【RootData 2026 Industry Ecosystem Mapping】 form to supplement your important customers and partners.

According to Bloomberg, the total amount of private financing in the cryptocurrency sector increased from nearly $13 billion in 2024 to $20.4 billion in 2025, but it is still below the peak of $27.6 billion in 2022.The two main areas of private financing are "investment and trading infrastructure" and "brokers and exchanges" (i.e., financial applications). Payment infrastructure ranks third. The total amount of funds raised by cryptocurrency payment companies is expected to soar to $2.6 billion in 2025, surpassing the total raised over the past three years. Given the recent acquisition of BVNK by Mastercard, this figure is expected to grow further this year.In contrast, blockchain gaming financing plummeted from $3.76 billion in 2022 (accounting for about 14% of the total) to 2025, no longer being reported as a separate category. Web3 dApps raised $5.2 billion in 2022. However, in the 2025 report, the dApp category focused solely on consumer applications received only $864 million in financing.

According to Bloomberg, Andrew Ferguson, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, sent letters to payment companies such as Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe, warning them not to refuse services based on users' political views or religious beliefs.Ferguson stated that preventing law-abiding individuals from conducting legitimate business is not in line with American values. This move comes as the Trump administration focuses on the issue of "de-banking," with the government previously suing JPMorgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon, accusing the bank of cutting off services to Trump and his businesses for political reasons. The Trump Organization has also sued Capital One Financial Corp., alleging political discrimination. Both JPMorgan Chase and First Capital deny the allegations. Stripe responded that it would not restrict services based on political views.

ARK Invest's Director of Digital Asset Research, Lorenzo Valente, stated, "The importance of Musk recruiting Benji Taylor to join the X platform as Chief Designer may be underestimated by many. Benji Taylor founded the self-custody crypto wallet Family, which was later acquired by Aave, where he served as CPO, and joined Base in 2024 as Head of Design. If you only consider the basic fintech user experience, then this type of talent may not be suitable for you. It is increasingly likely that wallets, on-chain payments, and eventually DeFi will become part of X's development roadmap."

The cross-border payment company Tazapay, headquartered in Singapore, has completed a Series B extension financing round led by Circle Ventures, bringing the total amount raised in Series B to $36 million.New investors include CMT Digital and Coinbase Ventures, joining Circle Ventures, Peak XV Partners, January Capital, and GMO Venture Partners in this extension round, while existing investors include Ripple, Norinchukin Capital, ARC180, and RTP Global.Tazapay is committed to building cross-border transaction settlement payment infrastructure for businesses and currently holds licenses or has completed registrations in Singapore, Canada, Australia, and the United States, and is applying for relevant licenses in the UAE, the EU, and Hong Kong. The company stated that the funds from this round will be used to obtain more regulatory licenses and develop automated payment process products.

According to CoinDesk, Vibhu Norby, Chief Product Officer of the Solana Foundation, stated at the New York Digital Assets Summit (DAS) that the Solana network has processed 15,000,000 on-chain payments from AI agents, primarily for machine-to-machine commercial interactions, with stablecoins becoming the default settlement tool for AI agents' payment computing power and services.Norby pointed out that the programmable nature of AI agent payments gives it a unique advantage in the crypto payment landscape and believes this trend will fundamentally change the monetization model of the internet, supporting micropayments billed by usage down to fractions of a cent, which traditional payment rails cannot achieve. Norby stated that when AI agents choose a crypto payment method, Solana typically ranks highly.He anticipates that in the future, 95% to 99% of crypto transactions will be initiated by large language models (LLM), and the primary way users will interact with crypto networks will shift to being completed through AI agents.

Fluid officially released the latest progress on the Resolv security incident, disclosing that the current debt repayment work is still ongoing until all affected user funds are covered. Currently, approximately $70 million in USR-related debt on the BNB and Plasma chains has been repaid, and the remaining amount is expected to be settled in the coming days.In addition, a governance proposal has been published on-chain, intending to transfer the remaining USR debt positions to the team's multi-signature address to further complete the liquidation with the Resolv Labs team. A compensation plan for all affected users will be announced soon. The platform's market is operating normally, and user funds remain secure.

According to Bloomberg, Circle Internet Group announced a partnership with Sasai Fintech, a subsidiary of Cassava Technologies supported by NVIDIA, marking the first collaboration in Africa. The transfer application under Sasai Fintech covers 30 markets in Africa, and users can now use Circle's USDC stablecoin for domestic and cross-border payments through the app.

The Web3 asset data platform RootData recently organized Stripe's partner network in the cryptocurrency field, systematically presenting its complete ecological map from underlying blockchain infrastructure to end payment applications.From a structural perspective, Stripe has formed a closed-loop architecture of "three layers of self-built + external ecology":The bottom layer consists of its directly controlled crypto infrastructure, including the stablecoin orchestration platform Bridge acquired for $1.1 billion in 2024, the wallet-as-a-service company Privy, and the payment-specific public chain Tempo co-incubated with Paradigm;The middle layer integrates deeply with mainstream networks such as Circle, Coinbase, and Polygon to facilitate on-chain settlement pathways;The outer ecological layer covers dozens of crypto platforms such as Crypto.com, Blockchain.com, and Magic Eden, as well as fintech clients like Félix and Dakota that achieve low-cost cross-border remittances through Bridge.It is noteworthy that the Tempo mainnet officially launched this month, simultaneously introducing a "machine payment protocol" aimed at AI agents, and hosting the first AI payment hackathon in San Francisco. This marks a significant evolution in Stripe's crypto strategy, accelerating from "enabling merchants to accept stablecoins" to "allowing AI agents to autonomously control the flow of funds." 【View Stripe's Crypto Partner Network Compilation (continuously updated)】RootData stated that it will continue to track and open more project business relationship disclosure channels. For crypto projects, actively showcasing partnerships and business networks is becoming an important way to enhance transparency and market trust. Web3 project parties are welcome to claim data and join the RootData Alliances Hub TG group to collaboratively maintain business alliance data, match BD partners, and explore ecological cooperation!

Gate Pay announced the launch of the Merchant MCP (Merchant MCP) service, promoting the application of AI Agent in payment operation scenarios. This service encapsulates high-frequency operations such as balance inquiries, order inquiries, and refunds into Tools that comply with the MCP protocol, allowing merchants to complete inquiries and operations through natural language commands in customer service, finance, and operations scenarios, improving efficiency and optimizing process collaboration.Gate Pay introduces Restricted Access Keys (RAK), supporting on-demand configuration of calling permissions, and combines idempotency checks, frequency limits, and risk control mechanisms to ensure operations are controllable and traceable. The current MVP version supports three core capabilities: balance inquiries, order inquiries, and refunds, and will continue to expand to more scenarios in the future.Gate has built a unified interface architecture covering six major capabilities: CEX, DEX, wallets, payments, data, and information, supporting AI Agent to complete the entire process from information acquisition to execution on the same platform. The launch of the Merchant MCP further strengthens the capability boundaries of AI Agent at the execution level, providing more direct infrastructure support for the implementation of AI in real business scenarios.

According to the Israel Times, 26-year-old Israeli "Iron Dome" defense system reservist Raz Cohen is accused of leaking sensitive military secrets to Iranian agents and receiving approximately $1,000 in cryptocurrency as payment. He could face life imprisonment or the death penalty.Investigations show that over several months, he disclosed operational details of the "Iron Dome" air defense system, locations of air force bases, and a list of Israeli officials to Iranian intelligence personnel.

According to a report by Cointelegraph, an analysis report by Forrester senior analyst Meng Liu states that Stripe's newly launched Machine Payment Protocol (MPP) may mark a turning point for micropayments.The analyst noted that micropayments typically refer to small transactions worth a few cents or a few dollars, which have long struggled to gain widespread adoption due to cumbersome digital checkout processes and reluctance to approve small charges. However, AI agents executing payments while completing tasks, such as paying for data access or using online services, eliminate these barriers.