Buying cryptocurrencycryptocurrency isn’t the easiest thing in the world. It can often take investors several hours to do so. Opera wants to speed things up.
The Norwegian company behind one of the earliest Internet browsers today announced a partnership with Wyre that will allow US users to buy BitcoinBitcoin (BTC) and EthereumEthereum (ETH) in “less than 30 seconds.” (It’s the same way MyEtherWallet plans to expedite ETH purchases, which it announced last week.)
Opera said users on its Android browser will be able to purchase crypto with their debit cards, while iOS users can do so with Apple Pay. In addition to the US, the company said Scandinavia will also have access to the new crypto purchasing feature.
But Opera isn’t new to the world of crypto. “We have been working on crypto integration since 2018 when we introduced our first Web 3-ready browser for Android,” an Opera spokesperson told Decrypt. The company later launched crypto integrations for its iOS browsers the following year.
Opera also relaunched its desktop browser last year with Web 3.0 integration, allowing users to browse the decentralized web and use dapps. “Our vision is to enable and facilitate the seamless use of blockchain technologies on the web,” the spokesperson said.
Despite being one of the earliest companies to launch an internet browser in the 1990’s, Opera’s current browser market share (1.92%) is dwarfed by giants like Google’s Chrome (64.5%) and Apple’s Safari (17.5%), according to Statcounter, a website that tracks the industry.
It’s Browser World War II! A half dozen crypto companies, ranging from giants such as Coinbase and Binance, to smaller startups such as AlphaWallet, are competing for market share in the growing cryptoverse. The battleground? An application—call it a “browlett”—that integrates a wallet, to safely store crypto, with a browser that connects to dapp marketplaces, services, exchanges and much more.
Just as Netscape and Internet Explorer—during the so-called Browser Wars—made Web 1.0 accessible for t...
The company, which says it now boasts 350 million users worldwide, faces steep competition in crypto from privacy-focused browser Brave. The Google Chromium fork recently announced a partnership that will allow users to use crypto rewards in the form of its native BAT token to purchase goods from 250,000 major brands.
Google Chrome might not be dethroned anytime soon, but the crypto browser wars are heating up.
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
A wallet used by the creators of President Donald Trump’s Solana meme coin made its first-ever withdrawals on Tuesday, sending $4.6 million worth of the project’s liquidity to a Coinbase Prime account.
The move comes just days ahead of the project’s first major token unlock, which is set for Thursday. Upon the three-month anniversary of the coin’s surprise launch on the eve of the president's inauguration, 40 million TRUMP tokens are scheduled to be released into circulation.
At writing, that...
Only 0.0005% of the $11 billion collected in income tax in Colorado since 2022, amounting to just over $57,000, has been paid using crypto.
The State of Colorado began accepting crypto-based tax payments in September 2022, under a policy introduced by Governor Jared Polis.
Yet figures shared with Colorado Newsline by the Colorado Department of Revenue reveal that only eight payments using crypto were made in 2022, amounting to a grand total of only $16,426.
This rose to 22 payments and a total o...
Bitcoin mining firm Auradine has raised $153 million in its latest funding round as it aims to launch a new AI-focused initiative.
StepStone Group led the Series C funding round, with participation from Maverick Silicon, Samsung Catalyst Fund, MARA Holdings, and other investors, according to Auradine's statement published on Wednesday. The oversubscribed raise brings the firm's total raised capital to $300 million.
Auradine will use its funds to fuel a new business group, AuraLinks AI. The ini...