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The best current options for cannabis payment processing are compliant point of banking solutions and ACH.

From Cannabis Payment Processing Guide 2023 | Flowhub:

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Marijuana shops across the US are rushing to find alternative ways for customers to pay after networks that supported a popular workaround to the banking system began to shut down last week

From How to Buy Weed? That’s Changing as Cashless ATMs Close – Bloomberg:

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INSTABILL FEATURES

Instabill is a veteran high-risk provider that offers some payment processing services to medical marijuana dispensaries. The company is very transparent about accepting cannabis merchants, and its website includes specific information about which payment methods are available and which particular business types are supported.

The company currently offers the following payment options:

ACH Transfers: You issue cards that your customers can link to their bank accounts to allow in-store or online ACH payments.

From 4 Top Cannabis Payment Processing Companies 2022:

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FedNow

 

R2P

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Cannabis is $30 billion industry, too often forced to operate in cash, or find work arounds due to compliance issues with using traditional payments rails. In this frank talk with Jessica Billingsly, CEO of Akerna, we will be talking about the ins and outs of payments for cannabis, and ways to open those rails to everyone’s benefit.

From Money20/20 – Where The Future of Money is Invented:

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Most individuals who transferred money to crypto accounts did so when cryptoasset prices were significantly higher than recent levels, and those with lower incomes likely made purchases at elevated prices relative to higher earners.

From All the young dudes carry the bags | Financial Times:

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JPM says:

The intensity of transfer activity at certain points in time, correlated with price movements, suggests herd-like behaviour driving a notable share of individuals’ overall transactions with crypto accounts.

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Binance had paused withdrawals of stablecoin USDC from its platform due to inadequate reserves, but has since resumed processing requests. The interesting part here is not that Binance had to temporarily suspend withdrawals just as rumors around its solvency are swirling in an unusually suspicious market. It’s that it apparently could not convert its stablecoin BUSD into USDC without sending funds to a New York-based bank which was not open at the time of need. Assuming this is true, it does detract from the “instant transfer” promise of stablecoins, and reminds us that traditional financial market structure still plays a significant role in the functioning of crypto markets.

From Thursday, Dec 15, 2022 – by Noelle Acheson.

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Binance said in a tweet it is working with accounting firm Mazars on “user fund transparency work and Proof of Reserves updates,” and  last week published a proof of reserves report showing customer assets and liabilities for one day in November. But media reports highlighted that the report was not comprehensive enough to show a full picture of the company’s finances.

From Briefing: Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao Tries to Reassure Customers After Big Withdrawals — The Information.

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The data suggests that FTX’s demise hasn’t been investors’ biggest issue this year. Both the depegging of Terra’s UST token and the collapse a few weeks later of Celsius and Three Arrows Capital (3AC) drove much bigger realized losses for investors: $20.5 billion in the case of UST and a whopping $33.0 billion in the case of Celsius and 3AC, versus just $9.0 billion for FTX.

From FTX Investor Impact: Timeline of Realized Crypto Gains, Losses:

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PayPal has amassed 429 million active accounts. Fifty-eight percent of Americans use PayPal, and in 2021, there were 19.3 billion PayPal transactions. It now has a market valuation of $84 billion.

But the company that was meant to liberate countless individuals is becoming something else.

Increasingly, it is becoming a police officer.

From What the Hell Happened to PayPal?:

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The Deputy Prime Minister Matthew Salvini defends the raising of the limit for accepting payments with the Pos to 60 euros. “I am a liberal, everyone must be free to pay as he wishes. If one wants to pay two euros for coffee with a credit card, he is just a pain in the ass”, he declared, responding to reporters during a break in the Open Arms process. “I try to pay in cash, because I like going to ATMs.”

From Salvini: “Those who pay for coffee with a credit card are pain in the ass” . The opposition: no, it’s normal:

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The Chinese authorities arrested a gang of 63 for laundering $1.7 billion with crypto.

From China Arrests 63 Gang Members For Laundering $1.7B With Crypto:

Authorities also disclosed that the gang has been operating since May 2021 and made the illicit funds through fraud, pyramid schemes, gambling, and other illicit activities. The gang then employed the use of crypto assets to launder their illicit wealth.

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Prosecutors carried out a string of searches over several days and said cash worth about €600,000 had been found at the home of one suspect, €150,000 at the flat of an MEP and €750,000 in a suitcase in a Brussels hotel room.

From EU corruption scandal: MEP denies Qatar bribery after €1.5m seized – BBC News:

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