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Chainlink springs on partnership with Mastercard

On Tuesday, Chainlink announced a partnership to allow Mastercard’s roughly 3 billion global cardholders to “purchase crypto assets directly on-chain through a secure fiat-to-crypto conversion.” 

Chainlink is a piece of crypto infrastructure that aims to provide real-world information to blockchain networks. Its native cryptocurrency has increased 11.7% in the last 24 hours, making it one of the top performers among cryptocurrencies. 

“People want to be able to easily connect to the digital assets ecosystem, and vice versa,” Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of blockchain and digital assets at Mastercard, said in the release. “In coming together with Chainlink, were unlocking a secure and innovative way to revolutionize on-chain commerce and drive the broader adoption of crypto assets.” 

The announcement comes as Mastercard is increasingly expanding into the crypto world. Mastercard also revealed today its integration with fintech firm Fiserv’s newly launched stablecoin. Last month, the payments giant teamed up with crypto service provider MoonPay to allow cardholders to spend their stablecoins in Mastercard’s over 150 million locations, and in April, Mastercard linked arms with Kraken to launch physical and digital debit cards for the crypto exchange.

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BlackRock’s IBIT on track for its worst month of net outflows, as investors yank $2.3 billion from the bitcoin ETF in November

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, the world’s largest bitcoin fund, is heading for its worst month of outflows since it launched in January 2024.

Investors have pulled over $2.3 billion (net) throughout November so far. The jitters come as bitcoin grapples with its worst downturn since 2022, when the entire crypto world shook following the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX — bitcoin has dropped more than 40% from its October high as of Monday’s close.

With their soaring popularity redefining and legitimizing cryptocurrencies at an institutional level, spot bitcoin ETFs have become a key barometer of wider investor sentiment surrounding the digital currency — as well as risk assets more broadly.

Notably, spot bitcoin ETFs like BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust tend to see their inflows accelerate with rising prices, and amplify falling prices when outflows become dominant. Citi Research, cited by Bloomberg, found that this feedback loop sees a ~3.4% price drop for every $1 billion pulled out from bitcoin ETFs.

Related reading: Bitcoin’s plunge produces technical signal that implies 60% more downside to come

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