Today in Crypto: Nigeria to Launch Nationwide Digital Wallet; Coinbase Joins Fortune 500 List

The government of Nigeria will be rolling out a nationwide digital wallet to allow for international commercialization of intellectual property (IP) forms, a press release said Tuesday (May 24).

Developing Africa Group is authorized to build the wallet and IP token platform, and it has hired asset tokenization and blockchain financial infrastructure company Koibanx to implement the wallet, token platform and payments.

Meanwhile, Coinbase is now part of the Fortune 500 ranking of the largest U.S. companies by revenue, Coindesk reported.

The company was named as one of the “pandemic winners” which thrived under the “freakish circumstances” of the past few years.

Elsewhere, Wirex is adding more payment methods, including several new top-up methods for Wirex Wallet customers in India, a company blog says.

The wallet is available worldwide, and was made so DeFi could be available for everyday users.

The Wirex Wallet will now be easier for users to buy various crypto, through a new mobile payment and bank transfer option, the report said.

In other news, Slavi Kutchoukov, the founder of blockchain-based project Slavi, has presented its crypto ATM project, a press release said.

The release says Slavi Finance is a blockchain and AI FinTech, which lets businesses, banks and private individuals get the ability to transition into a crypto lifestyle.

In more crypto news, South Korean crypto fans are turning against Do Kwon, the founder of the Luna cryptocurrency, a Financial Times (FT) report said.

Kwon has been known in the past for critiquing his own critics as “poor.” He has now been designated “the most hated man in Korea” by some critics. And there’s a criminal complaint against him after local crypto investors alleged fraud and breaching financial regulations.

Meanwhile, Buenbit, the crypto exchange from Argentina, has laid off 45% of its staff, Coindesk reported.

The team made the decision because of the overhaul worldwide of the tech industry, according to Federico Ogue, CEO of the company, on Twitter.

He said this didn’t have to do with the crash of UST stablecoin.

In addition, OpenNode has been making Bitcoin part of the established payment infrastructure, through an app to let Stripe users get Bitcoin exposure, a press release said.

The app will reportedly help companies spend less time on manual Bitcoin conversions.

Finally, Kevin O’Leary, the famous “Shark Tank” investor, has reportedly said he thinks the crypto space will turn into the 12th sector of the S&P 500 Index, a report from Seeking Alpha says.

O’Leary’s portfolio is reportedly 20% involved with the blockchain sector.