Bitcoin Daily: Merchants Can Accept Crypto Payments Via Bitfinex Pay; Ripple Co-Founder Requests Dismissal Of SEC Case; Kraken Could Go Public In 2022

Merchants can now accept cryptocurrency payments through Bitfinex Pay, a new contactless and borderless payment technology launched by Bitfinex on Thursday (March 4).

With Bitfinex Pay, online shoppers can pay via Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether, according to a company blog post. The widget is integrated onto the merchant’s website and payments are deposited directly into their Bitfinex exchange wallet.

Payments are capped at $1,000, and the blog post noted that while Bitfinex Pay carries no processing fees, the blockchain used may have transaction fees for the merchants and their customers.

Meanwhile, Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen has filed a request to dismiss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) case against the exchange, claiming it “fails to state a claim against Mr. Larsen.”

The SEC filed suit against Ripple in December, alleging its digital asset was a security and therefore operating unregulated. In response, Ripple claimed that the coin is a medium of exchange, not subject to the SEC’s regulations.

The request for dismissal claims that XRP has none of the qualities that define “investment contracts,” the type of security the SEC alleges it to be. The filing also claims that the SEC failed to prove that Larsen believed it was a security and operated the coin regardless.

The filing further notes that in XRP and Ripple’s eight years of activity, the SEC never called XRP transactions securities, and in the past has called Ripple “a digital currency company.”

“Moreover, the SEC declared that bitcoin and ether — two similar digital assets — are not securities, further undermining any claim that Mr. Larsen possessed the requisite knowledge or recklessness,” the filing reads. Furthermore, “DOJ and FinCEN’s classification of XRP as a currency was, and is, fundamentally incompatible with it being a security.”

In other news, founder and former CEO of crypto exchange BitMEX Arthur Hay may soon surrender to U.S. law enforcement, reported CoinDesk. Hayes was charged in October 2020 with violating and conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act for “willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate anti-money laundering program.”

Co-Founder Ben Delo and the firm’s first employee, Gregory Dwyer, were also charged, as well as Samuel Reed, who was later released on bond, according to CoinDesk.

Hayes, who currently lives in Singapore, has proposed traveling to Hawaii for virtual court appearances and New York for the in-person trial, while continuing to live abroad. Delo, who lives in the U.K., plans to surrender in New York, and Dwyer, living in Bermuda, does not plan to surrender. However, federal prosecutors are planning an extradition.

“We are trying to achieve compensation for victims of various nefarious acts that took place on that exchange for years. We are confident that justice will prevail,” said Pavel Pogodin, representing former BitMEX users suing the platform.

And cryptocurrency exchange Kraken could go public in 2022, CEO Jesse Powell told Bloomberg TV.

Powell predicted that bitcoin could reach $1 million in the next decade, becoming “the world’s currency.”

“We can only speculate, but when you measure it in terms of dollars, you have to think it’s going to infinity,” he told Bloomberg. “The true believers will tell you that it’s going all the way to the moon, to Mars and eventually, will be the world’s currency.”