Bitcoin Daily: Band Protocol Connects With Google Cloud; AXA Switzerland Now Takes Bitcoin For Payment

To allow for correct and instant insights into “financial time series data,” Band Protocol said on Thursday (April 15) that Google Cloud has integrated its standard dataset, according to a medium post from Band Protocol’s Kevin Lu.

Lu wrote in the post that dependable and correct ways to find prices are essential to every capital market.

“Our teams are empowering researchers and developers to use decentralized oracles for any external data source or type, regardless if the application is natively built on the blockchain or Web 2, through the flexible design of Band Protocol oracles,” Lu wrote in the post.

Band Protocol collects and links real-world information and application programming interfaces (APIs) to smart contracts, according to a Google Cloud Platform webpage.

AXA will now let clients use bitcoin to make bill payments, according to a Thursday (April 15) blog post. The company says it’s the “first all-lines insurer in Switzerland” to allow this payment method.

“This is AXA’s response to growing demand from its customers for alternative payment solutions, with new technologies playing an ever greater role,” Claudia Bienentreu, head of Open Innovation at AXA Switzerland, said in the post.

All private clients from the start of April can harness the new payment option. Premiums for each of AXA Insurance Ltd.’s nonlife offerings can be paid for with bitcoin. Clients need a reference number, an amount and a bitcoin wallet to make a payment.

Those who want to make a bitcoin payment can visit a web portal to transfer funds by typing in a reference number and amount before confirming an entry.

AXA says that the amount in Swiss francs is changed over to bitcoins behind the scenes. A progress bar tells the payer how long the exchange rate is valid. The payer doesn’t have the burden of exchange rate risk during that time. However, if time elapses before the conclusion of a transaction, the exchange rate is revised, and the timer begins once more.