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1st October 2022 > > Telefonica and others.


tl;dr

Corporate adoption of cryptos for retail use continues to gather pace.


Market Snap








Market Wrap

With headlines still running such as “… markets reel…” can someone please tell me which markets these headlines refer to? As hard as I try, I cannot find any examples. And no, a 2% sell off in stocks going into a weekend is not “reeling” one week after an event.


Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Telefonica and other news

I mentioned in passing yesterday that Telefonica, the giant Spanish telecoms incumbent, has teamed up with Bit2Me, apparently the largest centralised cryptocurrency exchange in Spain but new to me, to allow processing of transactions in BTC and other cryptos, including ETH, LTC (Litecoin) and USDC the stablecoin. See https://www.tu.com/:


I remain constantly surprised that the BTC logo is not yet seen on ALL retail websites, but that will happen soon enough. Looking at you Amazon …


Telefonica already has form in the crypto world, with a previously announced partnership with Qualcomm to explore commercial opportunities in the Metaverse:


“This agreement opens the opportunity to deliver new experiences to customers merging the digital and analogue worlds, re-imagining commerce, entertainment, and communication in the Metaverse.”


Telefonica is taking its obligations in this space seriously, with a whitepaper discussing the moral and ethical implications of the Metaverse. This is a relatively short, but informative, piece on this topic, which you can read here:



I urge you to do so.


It seems that Spanish appetite for cryptos extends to other retail outfits.


Vueling, an airline more familiar to Catalonians than Sleazyjet users like us, has partnered with BitPay to allow the purchase of tickets in thirteen different cryptos. Surprisingly the list also included meme coins such as DOGE (Dogecoin) and SHIB (Shib Inu).


According to CryptoPotato:


“BitPay’s Vice President of Marketing – Merrick Theobald – said the Spanish firm “recognizes the potential of cryptocurrencies to transform the airline industry, making payments faster, more secure, and less expensive on a global scale.”


Vueling is also planning to enable customers to book trips using the Metaverse (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/next-earth-partners-with-iomob-and-vueling-airlines-to-expand-its-metaverse-with-first-ever-transportation-layer-301542833.html) an obvious but clear use case for this technology, as recognised by Jesus Monzo, Distribution Strategy and Alliances Manager of Vueling:


"Visualizing real-world journeys and using a Metaverse interface to select and book the least polluting trip, has never been done before."


Gucci announced in May that some U.S. stores would take cryptos as payment, a facility that has now been rolled out nationwide.


It appears to be successful as the firm recently announced the breadth of payment options would be extended to include ApeCoin (related to the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection) and Euro Coin (the EUR denominated sibling of USDC). Powered by BitPay (again), the CEO says:


"We added ApeCoin and Euro Coin because customers of our luxury merchant partners asked for it. They asked, and we delivered.”

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