Alchemy Pay joins Mastercard Crypto Partner Program to build fiat-crypto 
payment tools and explore on-chain commerce integrations worldwide.

Alchemy Pay joins Mastercard program to expand crypto payments

The Stellar Development Foundation and the Government of Bermuda have 
announced that the island nation will begin moving key payment and financial 
services activity onto the Stellar network — marking the first operational 
milestone in Bermuda&#8217;s stated ambition, declared at the World Economic Forum 
in January 2026, to become the world&#8217;s first fully on-chain national economy. 
Related Reading: Bitcoin Rally At Risk: This Critical Resistance Could End 
BTC’s Bullish Run The partnership, announced via Stellar&#8217;s official press 
release, is not a pilot study or a working group. It is the beginning of a 
live deployment. Bermudian residents will be able to receive wages, pay local 
merchants, settle government fees, and hold, send, and receive digital assets 
through digital wallets on the Stellar network. Government agencies expect to 
pilot stablecoin-based payments. Financial institutions will be able to 
integrate tokenization tools. Social service disbursements are also being 
explored as a use case, per the announcement. Stable infrastructure that 
scales. That&#8217;s what the government of Bermuda is accessing by partnering with 
SDF. At @SALTConference, @rajachak75 spoke with @BermudaPremier about how the 
Stellar network&#8217;s growth can power this exciting next step for Bermuda. 
pic.twitter.com/graFK5B1sP — Stellar (@StellarOrg) May 12, 2026 The Problem 
Bermuda Is Solving The economic case behind the move is concrete. Local 
merchants on the island currently pay between 3% and 5% per transaction in 
card processing fees, with effective costs reaching as high as 10% in some 
categories, according to the press release. The absence of mobile money 
infrastructure and continued reliance on legacy payment rails has left 
Bermudians absorbing costs that, in the SDF&#8217;s framing, represent value leaving 
the island rather than circulating within it. The Hon. E. David Burt, Premier 
of Bermuda, addressed the issue directly in the announcement, noting that 
digital dollars and Stellar&#8217;s infrastructure make it possible to deliver this 
kind of systemic change responsibly and at the scale Bermuda requires. Why 
Stellar Stellar&#8217;s selection is not incidental. The network was purpose-built 
for regulated financial services — public and permissionless by design, but 
configurable with the asset controls that sovereign and institutional 
deployments require, per the press release. Transactions settle in seconds at 
fractions of a US cent. The network also operates one of the world&#8217;s largest 
cash on and off-ramp networks for digital assets, a feature that matters 
significantly for an island economy dependent on accessible liquidity 
channels. Bermuda&#8217;s regulatory foundation further supports the choice. The 
island established the Digital Asset Business Act in 2018 — one of the world&#8217;s 
earliest comprehensive digital asset regulatory frameworks — giving the SDF a 
jurisdiction with existing legal infrastructure rather than a blank slate. 
Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development 
Foundation, noted in the release that Bermuda has assembled what most 
jurisdictions cannot: regulatory clarity, an aligned ecosystem, and a 
government willing to lead. XLM&#8217;s price moving sideways following a steep 
decline in late 2025, as seen on the daily chart. Source: XLMUSD on 
Tradingview The announcement is not Stellar&#8217;s first sovereign deployment. The 
Republic of the Marshall Islands completed the world&#8217;s first nationwide 
onchain disbursement of universal basic income via USDM1 on the Stellar 
network in December 2025, per the press release — a precedent that Bermuda&#8217;s 
program now builds on. Related Reading: Crypto Firm Exodus Drains 63% Of Its 
Bitcoin Reserves As Q1 Loss Doubled Year Over Year This development marks a 
pivotal moment for the nascent sector&#8217;s relationship with sovereign financial 
infrastructure. A national government committing to move its payment economy 
on-chain is no longer a theoretical use case for blockchain technology — it is 
an operational one, and Stellar just became the network powering the world&#8217;s 
first attempt to prove it works at national scale. Cover image from ChatGPT, 
XLMUSD chart on Tradingview

This Country Is Going Onchain — And Ripple Rival Stellar Just Landed The Deal

Political instability in Israel could lead to shifts in power dynamics, 
impacting Netanyahu&#8217;s leadership and future electoral outcomes.
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Netanyahu’s coalition moves to dissolve Knesset amid political instability

OpenAI&#8217;s new unit could accelerate AI adoption in key industries, enhancing 
operational efficiency and potentially boosting its market valuation.
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first on Crypto Briefing.

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Ether withdrawals are expected to resume within 24 hours for KelpDAO users 
after a coordinated burn of the attacker’s rsETH tokens on Arbitrum 
successfully neutralized the exploit’s impact. MORE THAN AN EXPLOIT The rsETH 
bridge lockbox on Arbitrum is being refilled, and ether withdrawals for users 
affected by the KelpDAO exploit are expected to start […]

Ether Withdrawals to Resume Following KelpDAO and Aave’s Coordinated Token Burn

Ethereum price continued consolidating near the $2,300 region on Tuesday as 
improving technical structure and a fresh bullish moving average crossover 
strengthened expectations for a possible move toward the $2,600 resistance 
zone. According to data from crypto.news, Ethereum (ETH) traded…

Alchemy Pay joins Mastercard program to expand crypto payments

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