Xsolla and BitPay now support Ripple's digital currency for in-game purchases.

Roblox, an online game platform with more than 200 million monthly active users, now accepts XRP as a payment method. The announcement was made on BitPay’s Twitter on Oct. 17.

News Alert @Xsolla now accepts XRP(@Ripple) with BitPay as a payment method for their games, such as @Smitegame and @Roblox. You can use your favorite cryptocurrency to buy, play, and enjoy gaming like never before.#BitPay #crypto #Smite #Xsolla #Roblox pic.twitter.com/NAg2EyOVGM

— BitPay (@BitPay) October 17, 2023

XRP as a payment option is now supported by the company, which manages the in-game payments in Roblox, a Los Angeles-based Xsolla. BitPay will act as a partner, responsible for the seamless connection with crypto wallets.

Available on all mainstream platforms, such as Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Roblox counts 65.5 million daily active users, 44% of whom are under the age of 13. Roblox users spent around $773 million on the in-game purchases in Q1 2023.

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Xsolla has been quite active in its efforts to integrate crypto into its payment system. In August 2022, it partnered with automated crypto management platform Coinchange Financials Inc. and live-streaming social Web3 platform TradeZing to develop a non-fungible tokens (NFTs) payment solution. In August 2023, it joined forces with Crypto.com to integrate the latter’s checkout solution into Xsolla’s Pay Station platform.

The partnership between Xsolla and BitPay goes back as far as 2014 when the service started to accept payments in BTC. In Sept. 2023, BitPay and Xsolla rolled out PayPal USD (PYUSD) payments for merchants and consumers.

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Artificial intelligence is touted to provide a number of benefits to the management of pension funds, according to research from Mercer.

Artificial intelligence could be used by pension funds to cut costs, increase investment returns and highlight possible risks, but there are still “significant challenges to overcome” with its use, says the Mercer CFA Institute global pension report.

On Oct. 17, the annual joint report from the consulting firm and investment professional association marked AI as useful for helping pension fund managers trawl through mass amounts of data that could highlight opportunities and build custom investment portfolios.

“AI will affect the operations of pension systems around the world,” lead author and Mercer senior partner Dr. David Knox wrote. “It has the potential to greatly improve the member experience as well as members’ retirement outcomes.”

Natural language AI tools could also be used by pension funds to analyze their members — scraping data from emails and calls so the fund can personalize its marketing and outreach efforts based on how each individual communicates.

AI-assisted analysis is touted to identify patterns and discover market sentiment and signals to suggest unconventional future investment opportunities.

“This can lead to improved asset allocation and/or better diversification, resulting in higher long term returns and lower volatility.”

AI could also help investors take stock of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. The technology is also expected to enable automation of middle and back office environments, lowering costs that can narrow differentials between passive and active investment strategies.

AI is also expected to enable the prediction of member behaviour in response to a variety of possible economic and political circumstances that can impact cash flows of a pension fund.

“For example, a stock market crash can lead to members switching to defensive asset classes, whereas a newly elected government may lead to some retirees withdrawing their accrued benefits.”

However, AI tools can generate fake or misleading information and uncertainty around AI use is likely to remain as models are “unlikely to be able to predict market prices with accuracy.”

The report also highlighted the need for “strong defenses against cyberattacks, scammers and other security breaches”

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The author outlines that AI is already being leveraged in investment markets to make decisions based on the analysis of data, reports, risks and market trends. The advent of programmable trading has been in use since the 1980s, with high-frequency trading changing the way in which investments are managed.

Algorithmic trading is reported to contribute to a significant amount of automated trading, contributing up to 73% of United States equity trading in 2018 alone.

Additional reporting by Jesse Coghlan.

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TrueCoin’s internal systems were not impacted or accessed, as the company confirmed that the attack was an isolated incident and limited to a third-party vendor.

Stablecoin TrueUSD (TUSD) announced a potential leak of certain Know Your Customer (KYC) and transaction history data as one of TrueCoin’s third-party vendors got compromised. 

TrueCoin was the operator of the TUSD stablecoin till July 13, 2023. On Oct. 16, a third-party vendor’s security team informed TrueCoin of “an anomalous account change within [TrueCoin’s] organization made by a compromised support vendor.” As a result, TrueCoin suspects the compromise of some of TUSD’s existing customer data.

TUSD team was informed by TrueCoin that they received a third-party vendor's notification that the vendor’s Security Team detected “an anomalous account change within [TrueCoin’s] organization made by a compromised support vendor.”

— TrueUSD (@tusdio) October 16, 2023

TrueCoin’s internal systems were not impacted or accessed, as the company confirmed that the attack was an isolated incident on a third-party vendor. “TUSD system is SECURE and not attacked. Both TUSD system and TUSD's reserves are UNAFFECTED,” affirmed TrueUSD through its official X (formerly Twitter) account.

Data collected from such breaches — names, email addresses and phone numbers, among others — are typically used for phishing attacks. Attackers reach out to unwary investors by mimicking various crypto services, often promising high profits in short amounts of time.

The impact of the attack and the resultant data leak is yet to be identified, as the total number of users’ data was not revealed during the announcement.

TrueUSD has not yet responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

Related: TrueUSD stops minting via Prime Trust, loses dollar peg

TrueCoin recently distanced itself from Nevada-based Prime Trust right after the latter abruptly halted all fiat and cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals.

TrueUSD announced that “it is not affected by the situation” at Prime Trust while emphasizing its diversified partnerships and maintaining “multiple USD rails” elsewhere.

“PrimeTrust has suspended all deposits of fiat and digital assets. #TrueUSD (#TUSD) is not affected by this situation. We have no exposure to Prime Trust and maintain multiple USD rails for minting and redemption. Rest assured, all your funds are safe with TUSD,” TrueUSD stated.

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