The Daily: Skrill Launches Crypto Trade, Luxury Market Reaches $100M Transactions

In today’s edition of Bitcoin in Brief we cover stories about Skrill launching crypto buying and selling, luxury marketplace The White Company reaching $100 million in transactions, Bitmex setting a trading record, and weak mining-related sales hurting AMD.

Also Read: Bitmain Reveals the Total Hashrate of Its Mining Hardware

Skrill Launches Crypto Trading

Skrill, the online payments service formerly known as Moneybookers, is now enabling its wallet users to instantly buy and sell cryptocurrencies, including BTC, BCH, ETH and LTC, using more than 40 supported fiat options. The company said it purchases and holds the cryptocurrency via “a recognised cryptocurrency exchange.”

Skrill’s new cryptocurrency capability is available at launch in over 30 countries including: Australia, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, and the UK. The company plans to roll it out to additional markets and extend the service to its mobile app and Paysafe’s Neteller digital wallet in the next few months.

Lorenzo Pellegrino, CEO of Skrill, commented: “The world of cryptocurrency trading is exciting and dynamic, and our digital wallet service very much lends itself to this environment. I’m confident that the ability to trade in cryptocurrencies quickly and easily through Skrill will appeal to consumers both now and in the future. We know many people want to experiment with cryptocurrency trading but don’t know where to start and we’ve made the entire process very straightforward.”

The White Company Reaches $100M

The White Company, a cryptocurrency concierge and luxury marketplace, has announced it surpassed $100 million in cryptocurrency sales and transactions since launching in 2017. Over 25,000 deals have taken place for goods including Lamborghinis, pieces of rare art, global excursions and conversions to fiat. The platform also plans to launch a commercial processing solution by the end of Q3 2018.

“Usability of crypto is paramount for its mainstream adoption,” said CEO Elizabeth White. “A new asset class has been created through this digital currency boom, but holders have been largely unable to spend their new wealth. We’ve made it our mission to help consumers use crypto to purchase goods, experiences or simply cash out into fiat, and our recent stablecoin and wallet platform furthers that goal. This milestone is a testament to the demand for widespread usability, and we’re excited to continue serving the market and working with merchants in the near future.”

Recently, the company has decided to accept Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and says there has been a high demand by BCH holders. Gold Krugerrands and Beyonce/Jay-Z tour tickets being the most popular items. As a result, The White Company has begun offering exclusive items available for purchase only with BCH, starting with jewelry from Cartier.

Bitmex Sees Over 1 Million BTC Trades in 24 Hours

Bitmex, an exchange offering cryptocurrency trading with very high leverage, has reported more than 1 million BTC traded on the platform in the 24-hours period closing July 24. The 1,041,748 BTC traded shattered its previous record of 800,000 traded within 24 hours.

CEO and Co-founder Arthur Hayes said: “The astronomical surge in trading volume, coupled with the steadily rising price of bitcoin, is reflective of the market’s increasingly sophisticated understanding of the potential of bitcoin to redefine global markets. The achievement was also largely thanks to ongoing capacity increases accomplished by scaling our engine architecture. The record that BitMEX has set marks a major milestone in the cryptocurrency industry’s overall path to maturation. I am delighted that BitMEX’s easy-to-use and highly secure trading application has helped to onboard yet another tidal wave of people from all around the world to the crypto market and given them the confidence to participate on the largest scale ever seen.”

Weak Mining-Related Sales Hurt AMD in Q2

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), whose mining-related sales accounted for 10% of its overall revenue in Q1, has reported its Q2 financial results. Despite a quarterly increase in overall revenue of 7%, the Computing and Graphics segment revenue was down 3%. The company explains that this decline “was primarily related to lower revenue from GPU products in the blockchain market.” For the third quarter of 2018, AMD expects revenue to be driven by the sales growth of Ryzen and EPYC products, “partially offset by lower sales of GPU products in the blockchain market.”

AMD CFO Devinder Kumar commented in an earnings call with analysts that: “Graphics revenue was down primarily driven by lower blockchain sales partially offset by stronger data center sales. We believe blockchain-related revenue declined from approximately 10% of our revenue in the first quarter to approximately 6% of our overall revenue in the second quarter.”

What do you think about today’s news tidbits? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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