PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024

Bitcoin Daily: Social Shopping Platform Personas Adds Bitcoin Payment Option; Hackers Demand $20 Million In Bitcoin From Kia Motors

Social shopping platform Personas Social has rolled out a bitcoin payment system, according to a press release. The company will now accept bitcoin payments for purchasing content on its Peeks Social platform.

The release stated this will also come with identity verification which will require users to submit a photo ID and proof of address in order to enable funds withdrawals.

Personas Social has received requests from online merchants to use its bitcoin payment service and said it might consider expanding into payment processing for other merchants, the release noted.

In other news, Kia Motors America has become a victim of a ransomware attack from the group DoppelPaymer demanding $20 million in bitcoin for ransom, CoinDesk reported.

DoppelPaymer said if the ransom wasn’t paid, stolen data would be shared with the public, according to the report. In addition, if not paid within 10 days, DoppelPaymer said the amount demanded would rise to 600 bitcoins, or over $30 million.

Right now, Kia Motors America is suffering severe power outages with both phone systems and web systems offline, CoinDesk reported.

Meanwhile, Gemini is launching its new Cryptopedia, which it says will provide high quality information about cryptocurrencies for the world, according to a company blog post.

Gemini said in the post that its mission is to “empower the individual through crypto, and we believe that journey begins with understanding. We know that the lack of comprehensive education around crypto is one of the main barriers to entry and adoption for consumers — which is where Cryptopedia can help.”

The new Cryptopedia will work for any level of knowledge with crypto, from those looking to learn about the fundamentals of bitcoin to deep dives on trendy new projects in decentralized finance (DeFi) or how trading and investing concepts apply to cryptocurrency, the post stated.

There’s also an expert network, which will provide insights from people like Brave CEO Brendan Eich, Aave CEO Stani Kulechov, Tezos Co-Founder Kathleen Breitman and others, according to the post.

PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024