ChainCatcher news, according to TheBlock, Coinbase Ventures and a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) announced a new strategic investment in Skyfire, a payment company focused on artificial intelligence. This investment increases Skyfire's total seed funding from the previous $8.5 million to $9.5 million. Currently, Skyfire is building infrastructure that allows AI agents to make autonomous payments, avoiding human intermediaries.Additionally, the Web3 asset data platform RootData shows that Skyfire is the financial stack of the AI economy, providing an instant, global, and open payment system for AI agents to conduct fully autonomous transactions between AI agents, law masters, data platforms, service providers, and other goods and services. The Skyfire payment network also unlocks the fastest-growing consumer segment globally for LLMs, data, and service providers—AI agents. Empowered by Skyfire, AI agents will be able to leverage a vast digital service ecosystem for everything from data analysis and content creation to complex problem-solving and decision-making, all without human supervision. All these transactions will be supported by the stablecoin USDC.

ChainCatcher news, the decentralized payment network Wirex Pay announced on X that its mainnet is now live. The governance token WPAY for Wirex Pay will be launched in September.According to RootData, Wirex Pay is a decentralized payment network that supports self-custody debit cards and IBANs. Wirex Pay is designed as a modular payment chain, incubated by Wirex, the global leader in the crypto debit card market.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, the crypto payment network Skyfire has completed a $8.5 million seed round funding, with investments from Circle, Ripple, Gemini, and others.The company was founded by two former Ripple developers. Skyfire is an open-source payment system that will allow autonomous AI agents to quickly move across the internet, purchasing any goods needed to complete specified tasks—from data storage and creative assets to airline tickets and groceries. All these transactions will be supported by the stablecoin USDC.Skyfire is currently operating on the Ethereum scaling network Polygon, but the company has stated plans to expand to other blockchains soon. Skyfire is currently free to use, but it has indicated that it may soon charge transaction fees, which will range from 2% to 3%.

ChainCatcher news, Paxos announced that its USD stablecoin PYUSD, in collaboration with PayPal, has joined the Universal Digital Payments Network, aimed at helping PYUSD better address the high costs, complex processes, and slow settlement issues typically associated with traditional payment mechanisms.It is reported that the digital payments network is a global messaging network based on distributed ledger technology (DLT), designed to bridge the gap between traditional payment infrastructure and modern digital currencies.

ChainCatcher news, according to the official blog, Stellar announced plans to introduce smart contract functionality in its upgrade, which will be rolled out in phases in the first half of 2024.Validators on the Stellar network will vote on the upgrade on January 30. To ensure a high-quality experience for developers at launch, Stellar will evaluate experimental contract deployments and communicate with developers when the smart contract platform (referred to as Soroban) reaches user-available transaction processing levels per second.

ChainCatcher news, JPMorgan's official token JPM has recently launched on the blockchain payment network Partior.It is reported that Partior is an interbank payment network jointly launched by JPMorgan, DBS Bank, Temasek, and Standard Chartered in Singapore. It is designed as a multi-bank, multi-currency wholesale system, where each bank controls its own node, allowing customers to conduct value transactions using blockchain assets between these banks. The inclusion of JPMorgan's token into Partior may increase its usage.

ChainCatcher news reports that, according to Foresight News on-site coverage, the enterprise-level Web3 trading service provider KUN has officially reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation with the Hong Kong licensed virtual asset exchange HashKey Exchange. Both parties aim to empower the real economy through Web3, leveraging their respective advantages in compliance, technology, products, and branding to provide customers with a secure, compliant, and convenient Web3 digital payment product experience.The enterprise-level Web3 trading service provider KUN is committed to building a new generation of global digital payment networks, creating a compliant and convenient trading bridge between fiat and cryptocurrencies for real enterprises based on scenarios. It can provide one-stop Web3.0 trading service solutions for overseas enterprise clients in cross-border e-commerce, digital entertainment, overseas gaming, and service trade. HashKey Exchange is one of the first licensed retail virtual asset exchanges in Hong Kong and has obtained approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), holding Type 1 (Securities Trading) and Type 7 (Providing Automated Trading Services) licenses, operating a compliant virtual asset trading platform to provide one-stop virtual asset trading services for professional investors (PIs) and retail investors.

ChainCatcher news, Gnosis Chain launched the decentralized payment network Gnosis Pay and the self-custody debit card Gnosis Card at the EthCC (Ethereum Community Conference) in Paris.Gnosis Pay is based on Gnosis Chain, enabling Web3 developers to integrate various traditional payment methods, including Visa, allowing users to spend crypto assets directly from their wallets anywhere Visa is accepted; Gnosis Card is a self-custody consumer debit card certified by Visa, requiring KYC verification, built on the Gnosis Pay decentralized payment network, directly linked to on-chain wallets, supporting various card transactions both online and offline, with each transaction executed through smart contracts.Additionally, Gnosis Pay allows users to bind ENS to their cards, enabling them to use it with any wallet, and each community or wallet can issue its own branded corresponding Visa card. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, cross-border payment network Thunes announced the completion of a $60 million Series C funding round, led by Marshall Wace, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and Southeast Asian private equity firm 01Fintech. The funds will be used to explore new markets and enhance the efficiency of its payment network.It is reported that since 2021, the coverage of its mobile wallet network has quadrupled to 3 billion accounts, connecting 4 billion bank accounts globally and processing transactions worth approximately $50 billion, of which 90% are instant transactions. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, Nayiem, a member of the DPoS payment network Solar Network Foundation, tweeted that they plan to release the payment card SolarCard in the second quarter, with an official announcement coming soon.Previous report mentioned that Solar Network has partnered with the CeFi/DeFi solution Choise to launch a debit card service, which includes account features such as buying and selling cryptocurrencies, fee burning in SXP, etc. This service is available in approximately 140 countries/regions worldwide, including but not limited to the United States, China, South Korea, and Turkey. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, the DPoS payment network Solar Network has partnered with the CeFi/DeFi solution Choise to launch a debit card service, which includes account features such as buying and selling cryptocurrencies, fee burning in SXP, and is available in approximately 140 countries worldwide, including but not limited to the United States, China, South Korea, and Turkey. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to Finextra, a Universal Digital Payments Network (UDPN) aimed at stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has been launched at the World Economic Forum (WEF). The network is designed to provide interoperability between these digital currencies.It is reported that the payment network was launched in Davos, where a panel from Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, East Asia Bank, and Akbank discussed the rapidly evolving digital currencies, interoperability, and infrastructure. The UDPN report indicates that several tier-one banks will participate in a series of proof-of-concept use cases for the remainder of this month to demonstrate how UDPN can be used to address the challenges of integrating digital currencies into everyday business, banking, and payment scenarios. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, the stablecoin cross-border payment network Arf has completed a $13 million financing round, with participation from Circle Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), United Overseas Bank (UOB) Venture Management, Signum Capital, Hard Yaka, NGC Ventures, Blockchain Founders Fund, and 500 Emerging Europe, as well as investors from Coinbase, Solana, FTX, and Kabbage. The new funds will be used to develop its blockchain-based technology to provide global fund management and working capital credit lines for financial institutions and licensed money service businesses operating in the cross-border payment industry.ChainCatcher previously reported that the stablecoin cross-border payment network Arf launched its credit service "Arf Credit" in April this year, using USDC as a transactional short-term working capital. (source link)

According to Chain Catcher news and a report by Techcrunch, the payment network company Satispay, headquartered in Milan, Italy, has completed a Series D funding round of €320 million (approximately $305 million) at a valuation of €1 billion (about $955 million), led by Addition, with participation from Greyhound Capital, Coatue, Lightrock, Block, Tencent, and Mediolanum Gestione Fondi SGR.It is reported that this round of financing will be used to expand Satispay's product portfolio and for global expansion. Satispay's business includes peer-to-peer payments, pay-as-you-go services, and will support cryptocurrency payments. (Source link)