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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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$62B

Bitcoin digital asset treasuries (DATs) have taken a big hit amid bitcoin’s tumble, shedding $62 billion in value since the asset’s October 6 all-time high, Artemis data shows, with their fully diluted market cap dropping to $72 billion from $134 billion in early October.

Meanwhile, bitcoin, which has fallen below $62,000 on Friday morning, is down 50% from its all-time high. DAT pioneer Strategy’s market cap stood at $102.2 billion on October 6, according to Macro Trends, and is now down to $45.6 billion, a 55% decline. Strategy has been in hot water since it sold 32 bitcoin earlier this week, and because its digital credit instrument, STRC, has been trading below its par value. Shares of Strategy are down 17% in the past week.

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“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter” as sector sinks, with tokens hitting multiyear lows

On Thursday, altcoins swept lower as bitcoin weakened. The tokens with the biggest losses in the last 24 hours are NEAR, ethena, and Zcash, each declining double digits in the period.

Other tokens have dropped to lows not seen in over a year in the past 24 hours:

  • Ethereum dropped 4.4% to under $1,780, a level not seen since April 2025.

  • XRP declined 4.5% to an 18-month low last hit in November 2024.

  • Solana decreased 6% to trade below the $70 mark, its lowest price since December 2023.

  • Dogecoin slid below $0.09, a 27-month low last seen in February 2024.

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter as fears surrounding BTC/STRC and its potential overflow compound and overshadow anything that can be read as positive news (e.g. CLARITY movements),” according to Sean Dawson, head of research at crypto options platform Derive.xyz.

“[Altcoins] are high beta plays to BTC and are typically sold heavily in a downturn. Simply put, I’d be even more bearish on alts,” Dawson told Sherwood News.

“Further, liquidity has been drained into this year’s ‘superhot’ narrative of AI/data centers. In other words, there are just better, more exciting opportunities elsewhere,” Dawson added.

One cryptocurrency that has bucked the downtrend has been worldcoin, the native token for World, the digital identity project backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While the broader crypto market has been pushing lower, WLD has jumped nearly 5% in the last 24 hours and 90% in the past seven days, data from CoinGecko shows.

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