Wirex added two new stablecoins to its digital payments platform.
The integration of the VNX Euro (VEUR) and VNX Swiss Franc (VCHF) coins allows users to spend these currencies directly through their Wirex cards, the United Kingdom-based company said in a Monday (Dec. 23) press release.
“This addition allows our users to effortlessly spend stablecoins in real life, whether for daily purchases, remittances or managing their digital assets,” Wirex co-founder Pavel Matveev said in the release. “At Wirex, our goal is to make digital currencies as convenient and versatile as traditional money, and VEUR and VCHF are another step toward achieving that vision.”
The company plans to add more features after launch, including loans and high-yield X-Accounts, both of which are increasing in popularity among Wirex users, according to the release.
The loans let users access liquidity without selling underlying digital assets, using digital assets like bitcoin and other digital assets as collateral for loans in stablecoins. X-Accounts allow users to earn yields on their stablecoin balances, “enhancing the overall value proposition of holding VEUR and VCHF within the Wirex ecosystem,” the release said.
Wirex’s announcement came in the final days of a pivotal year for cryptocurrency marked by shifts in technology, regulation and market sentiment.
“As the sector matured, it experienced transformative changes that bridged gaps between the speculative origins of cryptocurrency and its increasingly utilitarian applications across industries,” PYMNTS wrote this week.
For example, holiday moviegoers this year were allowed to buy tickets and concessions at Regal theaters around the United States using the USDC stablecoin.
Stablecoins also continued their rise as the backbone of cross-border and enterprise crypto payments and a bridge to the traditional finance world. They allow businesses to bypass traditional correspondent banking networks and settle transactions almost instantaneously.
“Blockchain technology, and public blockchains in particular, are opening up a number of new use cases, one of which is to transfer value — such as remittances — from one country to another,” Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of blockchain and digital assets at Mastercard, told PYMNTS in November.
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