Crypto Market Sees Surge in Institutional Investment and Growing Visibility
Mastercard has joined the XRP Ledger hackathon in New York as a sponsor. The event, scheduled for October 24-25, will bring developers to build and launch projects on the XRP Ledger before Ripple's conference, Swell.
The hackathon includes four tracks focused on protocol innovation, agentic finance, lending and borrowing. Teams with existing projects have been encouraged to add XRPL functionality.
Mastercard's relationship with Ripple has gradually expanded over the past year. In November 2024, Ripple announced a collaboration with Mastercard, WebBank, and Gemini that revolves around Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin.
Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen was the target of protests outside his San Francisco home due to his financial support for San Francisco's expansion of police surveillance infrastructure.
BlackRock's Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) recorded over $1 billion in net inflows over nine consecutive U.S. trading sessions, leading U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs. The fund attracted positive flows on every trading day during the period.
Laser Digital Japan, the Japanese entity of Nomura's digital assets subsidiary, Laser Digital, announced its registration and authorization to operate as a crypto asset exchange service provider under Japan's Payment Services Act.