Popular meme coin dogecoin (DOGE) was up nearly 16% over the past 24 hours as billionaire Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter approached the finish line, Coindesk reports.

The Tesla founder's $44 million deal is supposed to close Friday.

Musk has been a major supporter of DOGE, which has become a proxy for sentiment about him. The entrepreneur's statements about the token have also consistently influenced its price.

DOGE was most recently trading at slightly over 7 cents. It had been languishing below 6 cents for much of the past six weeks. A year ago, DOGE was trading at 25 cents.

A Chainanlysis report revealed that the number of transactions in digital currencies nearly tripled in Saudi Arabia between July 2021 and June 2022, Al Arabiya reports.

During this period, more than $50 million worth of payments were made in cryptocurrency payments in the Kingdom, according to the platform that provides data on blockchain – the technology used to process and record crypto payments.

“Saudi Arabia is a major crypto counterparty, right up there with the UAE in terms of excitement around investment in cryptocurrency,” Kim Grauer one of the researchers who headed the report told Al Arabiya English.

DTTcoins, the global cryptocurrency exchange’s turnkey solution has won “Best White Label Solution 2022” at the 2nd edition of Crypto Expo Dubai, which was held October 5-6 at Festival Arena, Dubai Festival City. In addition to this prestigious accolade, DTTcoins was crowned “Best Crypto Exchange 2022” earlier this year.

DTTcoins’ Exchange White Label is an end-to-end solution designed to help startups launch their own cryptocurrency exchange business in less than one month with reduced costs and minimum effort.

Commenting on the award, Zaher Agha, DTTcoins Managing Director, said: “We are honored to receive the “Best White Label Solution 2022” award, voted by our peers in the industry as it affirms our leadership as a global fintech company. The award is a testament to the value our White Label solution brings to startups who are looking to build their own crypto exchange business and become part of one of the fastest growing markets that is expected to grow by 800% in just three years.”

Agha added: “DTTcoins’ turnkey solution is based on state of the art and tested technology with multiple layers of security. In addition, our solution is one of the few that offers clients high liquidity and marketing support to help ensure their successful launch and operations.”

The DTTcoins White Label solution comes packed with flagship products and value-added services including multiple platforms to meet the most demanding business environment; full Back Office functionalities and CRM integration to ensure operational efficient full-time; integration with DTT Plus that offers traders daily research and analytics, as well as intelligent trading tools; and exceptional 24/7 technical support.

DTTcoins is part of DTT Group, a regulated global leader in the financial markets industry offering beginner and advanced traders a comprehensive suite of products, solutions, and tools to help them embark on a successful and profitable trading journey. With more than 20 years of proven track record and successful experience, and a 100-strong team spanning across 12 offices worldwide, DTT Group is the trusted financial partner to tens of thousands of traders.

Mastercard highlighted on Wednesday five different areas it is working on in order to “turn cryptocurrencies into an everyday way to pay,” bitcoin.com report.

Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of Digital Asset and Blockchain Products & Digital Partnerships at Mastercard, explained:

Digital assets like cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies [CBDCs] have the potential to transform the financial system’s infrastructure.” He added that non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain gaming, and metaverse experiences “could change how consumers shop and communicate.

Dhamodharan proceeded to outline five key areas that Mastercard is working on to make this happen. The first area is crypto cards. He detailed that Mastercard already announced dozens of new crypto card programs globally this year. For example, in the U.S., the payments giant worked with Gemini on a credit card that pays rewards in cryptocurrencies. In Argentina, the company launched a prepaid card with Binance. In Europe, Mastercard recently announced the world’s first physical debit card that can be customized to include a customer’s NFT avatar.

The second area is services for crypto. Noting that “Mastercard is a provider of cybersecurity, digital ID, advisory and open banking services to tens of thousands of financial institutions,” Dhamodharan said the company is going to use the same tools “to provide more support to crypto players and issuers.” Mastercard has expanded its consulting work to include a dedicated crypto practice and it completed the purchase of Ciphertrace last year. The company will soon launch a new crypto monitoring product called Crypto Secure.

The third area is payments. “We’ve partnered with a handful of top-tier crypto-focused companies — including Paxos, Circle, Evolve and Uphold — to develop ways for people to quickly convert their crypto to fiat to make payments. This work will support current and future crypto card partnerships,” the executive detailed.

Noting that the fourth area focuses on crypto on the Mastercard networks, Dhamodharan emphasized:

An important way to expand choice for people is to bring certain Mastercard-approved digital assets onto our networks, a plan we announced last year that continues to move forward.

The fifth area concerns the metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Mastercard is working to grow its partnerships to support NFTs and the metaverse, Dhamodharan explained. For example, Coinbase users can now pay for NFTs with Mastercard.

European Union lawmakers signed off the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) legislation that hopes to regulate the digital asset space within the union, Decrypt reports.

European Parliament officials voted 28 to 1 in favor of the legislation, which will, if passed in the next vote, require stricter rules for crypto companies.

The MiCA bill asks those issuing crypto to publish a “crypto-asset white paper” containing information about their project.

It also asks stablecoin companies to meet capital requirements: such entities will be restricted on how many tokens they can issue if they are not denominated in euros or other currencies used by E.U. member states.

According to a new report by Chainanalysis, the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) is the fastest growing region YoY. MENA-based users received $566 billion in cryptocurrency from July 2021 to June 2022, 48% more than they received the year prior.

In Turkey and Egypt, fluctuating cryptocurrency prices have coincided with rapid fiat currency devaluations, strengthening the appeal of crypto for savings preservation, the report reveals.

In Morocco, inflation rates have been contained to a more manageable 5.3%. In fact, the North African country’s notable levels of grassroots adoption seem to be more tied to the government’s newly permissive crypto stance than to any particular macroeconomic tailwinds.

Saudi Arabia is the third-largest crypto market in all of MENA, and UAE is fifth. They also have deep ties to the global crypto markets: in our Sub-saharan Africa and Central & Southern Asia sections, we find that Dubai has become a hub for crypto companies that serve customers all across Asia and Africa, not just in the Middle East.

Source: Chainanalysis