Mastercard has announced a new program enabling financial institutions to bring secure cryptocurrency trading capabilities and services to their customers, called Crypto Source. The company will act as a bridge between Paxos and banks through it.

The XRP Ledger has started testing a sidechain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) in a bid to bring smart contracts to its network. The sidechain has been developed by a firm called Peersyst and is in its first phase of development.

Ethereum’s core developers have launched the “Shandong” testnet, where developers can start testing out their next upgrades to the protocol. The testnet is for the Shanghai upgrade, which is projected to happen next year.

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Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Mastercard to Help Banks Offer Crypto Trading
• XRP Ledger Starts Testing Ethereum Virtual Machina-Compatible Sidechain
• Ethereum Launches Testnet to Start Work on Shanghai Upgrade
• Chart of the Week: BTC-USDT & ETH-USDT Futures Volumes

Mastercard to Help Banks Offer Crypto Trading

Mastercard has announced a new program enabling financial institutions to bring secure cryptocurrency trading capabilities and services to their customers, called Crypto Source. The company will act as a bridge between Paxos and banks through it.

Mastercard and Paxos will handle regulatory compliance and security as part of the program to allow financial institutions to “gain access to a comprehensive suite of buy, hold and sell services for select crypto assets, augmented with proven identity, cyber, security and advisory services.”

While Paxos is set to provide cryptocurrency trading and custody services on behalf of banks, Mastercard’s technology will “integrate those capabilities into banks’ interfaces” to improve user experience.

The company noted that the program is complemented by Mastercard Crypto Secure, which will bring “additional security to the crypto ecosystem and support card issuers in their compliance with complex regulations.”

Ajay Bhalla, President, Cyber & Intelligence at Mastercard, was quoted saying:

“What we are announcing today is a connected approach to services that will help bring users safely and securely into the crypto ecosystem. Our recent investments in this space, such as the acquisition of CipherTrace and Ekata, are providing us with a unique set of capabilities to help provide our customers and consumers with the most technically advanced solutions available in the market.”

Mastercard will pilot the product in the first quarter of next year, before rolling it out in more geographies.

XRP Ledger Starts Testing Ethereum Virtual Machina-Compatible Sidechain

The XRP Ledger has started testing a sidechain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) in a bid to bring smart contracts to its network. The sidechain has been developed by a firm called Peersyst and is in its first phase of development.

The sidechain, a parallel-running blockchain, is currently only available on XRP Ledger’s Devnet, a restricted experimental network used for testing on the XRP Ledger. A second phase is set to begin in early 2023, and will feature a permissionless EVM sidechain open to the public.

It’s worth noting the XRP Ledger already supports native smart contracts, but does not currently support EVM smart contracts. Deploying the sidechain will allow developers to write applications using Ethereum’s main programming language, Solidity.

Ethereum Launches Testnet to Start Work on Shanghai Upgrade

Ethereum’s core developers have launched the “Shandong” testnet, where developers can start testing out their next upgrades to the protocol. The testnet is for the Shanghai upgrade, which is projected to happen next year.

Shanghai will be Ethereum’s first upgrade since the Merge in September, when the network transitioned from a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism into a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.

Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) being considered for the Shanghai upgrade include some that address efficiency and scalability issues. EIP-4895, for example, allows those who have staked ether on the Beacon Chain to withdraw their stake, along with earned rewards.

Right now, ETH stakers who deposited their funds to the Beacon Chain aren’t able to withdraw their funds or any rewards. Under consideration is also EIP-4844, which would see more data be processed on the network, and therefore decrease gas prices.

Chart of the Week: BTC-USDT & ETH-USDT Futures Volumes

In this week’s Chart of the Week, we can see that leading up to the Ethereum Merge there was a rise in speculative activity on Ethereum, with the ratio of ETH-USDT and BTC-USDT futures volume reaching 0.91 in August.

However, liquidity returned to Bitcoin soon after the merge, with BTC futures seeing an 83.7% greater volume than ETH futures in October, as of the 16^th.

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