Money that moves at any hour is the selling point now. Lloyds sent stablecoins to Visa over a weekend in under an hour, Block bought TV time to sell Bitcoin as spending money, and 90 North Dakota banks started settling dollar tokens on Solana.
- Lloyds and Visa settled $750,000 of live payment obligations in USDC during a seven-day pilot.
- “Some things don’t make sense. Bitcoin does.” is Block’s first consumer ad campaign, running to December 31.
- More than 90 North Dakota banks and credit unions can now settle with Roughrider Coin on Solana.
- Paying for an AI model no longer needs an account: Ethereum’s zkAPI is live on mainnet.
Each story takes a wait or an account out from between a person and a payment. What’s left to check is who issues the money being moved.
Lloyds and Visa settle in USDC over a weekend
Source: The Block
Lloyds Banking Group and Visa settled $750,000 of live payment obligations in USDC during a seven-day pilot. Lloyds’ Corporate Markets branch in Jersey sent the stablecoin to Visa in the United States, and the funds arrived in under an hour, weekend transfers included.
Lloyds ran its own node on Canton Network, Visa settled on a separate public blockchain, and UK exchange Archax handled the USDC purchases. Visa’s stablecoin settlement volume passed a $20 billion annualized run rate in September.
Zypto take: A cross-border payment between a UK bank and a card network now clears on a weekend, in under an hour. Merchants want that same clock, and Zypto Pay lets businesses accept crypto at online checkout or in-store POS and settle in crypto or local currency.
Block puts Bitcoin spending on TV
Source: Bitcoin Magazine
Block launched its first consumer advertising campaign on October 1, pitching Bitcoin as everyday spending money under the line “Some things don’t make sense. Bitcoin does.” It runs through December 31 on YouTube, X, Meta, Instagram, Fox Sports and in selected movie theaters.
The ads point people to Cash App, where they can buy, sell, send and receive Bitcoin, and to Square terminals that take Bitcoin over the Lightning Network. Miles Suter, Block’s Bitcoin lead, called it a first look at “what a Bitcoin-centric financial system could look like.”
Zypto take: Companies buy TV ad time for things they expect people to use, so this campaign treats Bitcoin as money for the checkout line. Bitcoin held in your own wallet can already settle a real bill: Zypto App lets you pay bills with crypto, including BTC, across 87,000+ billers in 120+ countries. Download Zypto App.
90 North Dakota banks go live on Solana
Source: CryptoSlate
Fiserv, the Bank of North Dakota and VersaBank USA switched on Roughrider Coin on October 1, a dollar-backed token deposit that settles on Solana. More than 90 North Dakota banks and credit unions can use it to start, approve and settle payments to one another inside their existing banking workflows.
The dollars stay in bank accounts while matching tokens move onchain and burn on receipt, and access is limited to financial institutions. The Bank of North Dakota pitches it for treasury transfers and loan payoffs, settling around the clock at lower cost than wires. Fiserv hasn’t disclosed payment volume.
Zypto take: Ninety community banks picking a public chain for settlement makes Solana part of everyday banking in North Dakota. Roughrider Coin is a bank deposit in token form: banks issue it, only financial institutions can hold it, and it burns when it arrives.
SOL on the same network has no issuer at all, and the Zypto multichain wallet holds it in your own hands alongside assets on 20+ blockchains.
Pay for AI privately with Ethereum’s zkAPI
Source: The Block
The Ethereum Foundation and the Open Anonymity Project put zkAPI live on Ethereum mainnet on October 1, a way to pay for AI models and other metered APIs without tying requests to an identity. Users prepay by depositing ETH or USDC into a vault contract, and each request carries a zero-knowledge proof that it’s funded without showing which deposit paid.
A serial number called a nullifier stops the same balance being spent twice. The protocol is marked experimental and doesn’t hide network traffic, so users who want stronger privacy can route through Tor. Vitalik Buterin and Davide Crapis co-authored the design in February.
Zypto take: An API key ties every prompt to an account and a payment card. Paying from a prepaid onchain balance loosens that link, which is ownership applied to something new: the payment proves the funds are yours without asking for your name. Zypto App holds ETH and USDC in a wallet you control and connects to dApps through its Web3 browser and WalletConnect.
Key Takeaways
- Speed sold today’s stories: a weekend USDC settlement, Lightning payments at Square terminals, and bank payments that settle around the clock.
- Bitcoin’s newest pitch is aimed at shoppers, and it’s running on TV and in movie theaters.
- Public blockchains now carry bank money, and bank money keeps its issuer on any chain.
- Privacy is turning into a payment feature, with zkAPI letting a funded balance speak for itself.
- The more ways crypto gets used, the more it matters which assets you hold yourself.
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