Ep 13. Pay with crypto, Brave & more

Welcome to the 5x5 Crypto podcast. Each week, we cover the &#8220;so what&#8217; of 5 key crypto stories in about 5 minutes.&#160;My name is Afo and I&#8217;m interested in crypto. I think you&#8217;ll enjoy this week&#8217;s episode. Like and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Substack. Let&#8217;s go!<br/><br/>This year has been flying by. Can&#8217;t believe its already one week to pi day. I&#8217;m looking forward to some good shepherds pie, key lime pie, and Patti LaBelle&#8217;s sweet potato pie&#8230;hmm. But that&#8217;s not why we are here. Crypto. This week did not disappoint. NFTs are still booming, corporates are making moves and bitcoin mining is under pressure. Let&#8217;s dive in. <br/><br/>Pay with crypto<br/><br/><a href="https://news.bitcoin.com/online-retail-giant-rakuten-allows-people-to-load-payment-app-with-cryptocurrencies/">Rakuten launches a cryptocurrency</a> that enables users to pay within their ecosystem <br/><br/>Customers can earn rewards too<br/><br/>So what?<br/><br/>One of the biggest criticisms of cryptocurrencies is the inability to pay for regular expenses like rent, utilities, and groceries. <br/><br/>To be clear, it&#8217;s possible but not easy. I know of a guy who lived off bitcoin for 3 years in San Francisco. That&#8217;s a different story. <br/><br/>Rakuten is often called the &#8220;Amazon of Japan&#8221;. The company serves over 1 billion people across 30 countries. The conglomerate includes a range of businesses including the largest e-commerce site in Japan<br/><br/>Rakuten is launching Rakuten Cash, a cryptocurrency that can be obtained for free by exchanging bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. This enables users to essentially shop across Rakuten with cryptocurrencies. <br/><br/>I am excited to see how much traction this gets. I bet other platform companies like Amazon and Apple are paying attention but they would need to tread carefully given how the Facebook-backed Libra (now called Diem) project fared. <br/><br/>PayPal deepens crypto ambitions <br/><br/>PayP