The Past Week in Crypto (Jan. 12th): Klay Thompson's BTC Salary and More

South Korean electronics company Samsung has officially entered the metaverse. This was announced by Decentraland, the metaverse platform where the store will be created. Officially called “873X Store”, the store will be open for a limited time and feature performances and experiences from different artists available for the visitors. With Samsung planning to create more similar stores in the future and its plans to support NFTs through its TV products, it seems that one of the largest electronics companies in the world is betting on metaverse being a beneficial technology for them. 

Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala join the growing list of athletes who will take a part of their salary in Bitcoin. Klay Thompson announced on Twitter that he and Andre Iguodala will be receiving a part of their salary in Bitcoin. They will also be giving out $1 million in Bitcoin through their collaboration with Cash App. The growing list of athletes across all sports who are accepting Bitcoin as payment is a sign of belief in the idea of crypto, and it is likely that we will see more athletes doing the same.

PayPal, one of the largest internet-based financial companies in the world, is exploring the creation of its own stablecoin. This was discussed by individuals on Twitter and then later confirmed by PayPal officials. While details are still unknown, it is now clear that the company is actively looking for ways to implement its own coin, expanding its interests in the cryptocurrency space after they announced features such as the ability to buy and sell crypto.

Meek Mill is officially hyping up crypto. The Philly rapper asked his fans to open Ethereum addresses in order to be able to listen to his music, suggesting that he may mint the album on the blockchain. He appeared to be particularly happy about this choice, as he stated “Now I can really rap.” Music is an area that many crypto enthusiasts believe will be disrupted by crypto innovation. It remains to be seen what Meek Mill will do exactly. 

Cash App, one of the most popular money-transfer apps in the US has integrated Lightning Network. The integration of the Layer 2 solution was not announced by the company itself, but users of the app published screenshots of the message they received in the app itself, which let users know that Cash App now supports the Lightning Network. This will improve the speed with which BTC transfers are sent