USDC’s parent firm, Circle, obtains 400 million USD funding from separate traditional financial organizations, including Fidelity Management and BlackRock Incorporated. The news reveals the growing interests of conventional financial organizations in the virtual currency industry.

The funding also coincides with Circle’s partnership with BlackRock, a top global investment firm based in the US. Circle hires BlackRock to help manage its USDC cash reserves.

The USD coin recently exceeded Tether by market capitalization, attaining a worth of 40 billion USD on the ETH blockchain-backed network. Additionally, statistics from CoinMarketCap show that the USDC sits among the top five virtual currencies, with a market capitalization of over $50 billion. 

Circle announced plans to set up a funding round, which should end in Q2 2022. Other firms that invested in the fund include Marshall Wace LLP and Research LLC. Commenting on the funding round, a senior staff of BlackRock, Rob Goldstein, affirmed that the relevance of virtual currencies to institutions like BlackRock would keep increasing.

The infiltration of virtual currencies into conventional financial sectors has continued to gain momentum, with this development being Circle’s latest fund. 

Meanwhile, the US-based firm has continued to advance its tracks in the financial sector. Recently, the trading platform launched a feature that allowed its clients to trade in virtual currencies via the USDC.

The service also permits corporate accounts to merge coin trading with their business accounts’ operations alongside a crypto lending service. Circle’s management says it expects the new partnership with BlackRock to promote the adoption of USDC in the global financial sector.

Singapore-Based FOMO Pay Adopts New Cryptocurrency Payment Feature for Retail Users

FOMO Pay recently launched a novel cryptocurrency payment feature for its retail users. The adopted features would permit retail users to receive settlements in “digital payment tokens” – the first of its kind in the Asian country. 

According to the legal permit, a digital payment token includes any cryptography-backed security and attached a value that may serve as a means of exchange. The term “digital payment tokens” includes well-known cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, USDC, LTC, etc.

The legal permit means that FOMO Pay users could now receive and make settlements in cryptocurrency. Consequently, the payment platform collaborates with different luxury retail outfits like EuroSports Auto and Luxehouze.

There are expectations that the new development would reduce the cost of executing retail transactions. That’s because such payments have lower transaction fees than is available on conventional payment means.

The Singaporean government has reportedly passed a bill to regulate organizations providing digital asset services in a related development. The law mandates that all financial services firms based in Singapore providing digital asset offerings must obtain licensing from the appropriate quarters.

Additionally, reports say that the new bill that affects all affected companies, regardless of their clients’ destinations, could transform into law in the Asian country. The actions of the Singaporean government support the advancing digital currency world. However, Singapore is cautious with choosing what companies it approves.