e-commerce

According to CoinDesk, the European Central Bank (ECB) called on e-commerce and mobile commerce merchants in the Eurozone on Tuesday to participate in the digital euro pilot program, preparing for the potential issuance of a retail central bank digital currency in 2029. The pilot will test the technology, operational processes, and user experience of the currency's beta version, which, while similar to the digital euro, is not legal tender.The pilot will last for 12 months and is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2027, with the final issuance still requiring legislative and management committee decisions. In the weeks prior, the European Central Bank selected 36 banks and payment institutions to participate in the testing phase. The pilot will involve the European Central Bank, the central banks of 19 Eurozone countries, and selected merchants, with central bank staff testing scenarios such as online and offline transfers between individuals, in-store payments, e-commerce, and mobile commerce payments.European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde stated that the digital euro is essential for maintaining European monetary sovereignty and reducing dependence on dollar-pegged stablecoins. The European Central Bank believes that the proliferation of private dollar stablecoins like Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC poses a threat to European monetary autonomy. Isadora Arredondo, Vice President of Global Policy at Hedera, stated that the success of the digital euro depends more on commercial viability, and merchants need incentives, while payment service providers may consider lowering the fees for merchants accepting digital euro payments.

Anthropic announced the launch of a blueprint for building e-commerce agents on Claude, providing the framework, patterns, and guardrails needed by engineering teams. It includes reference implementations for shopping agents and merchant agents aimed at retail, travel, telecommunications, and ticketing platforms, as well as the Claude Code plugin. The code can be deployed on Claude API, Amazon Bedrock, Microsoft Foundry, or Google Cloud Vertex AI, and can collaborate with partners such as Accenture, Mastercard, and Visa. The related code has been published in the GitHub repository anthropics/commerce-agents.The company stated that retailers running shopping agents on Claude can increase shopping cart sizes by up to 35%, and the likelihood of shoppers completing purchases improves by 60%. Business clients such as Shopify and Priceline have used Claude to build agents that allow consumers to search, compare, and purchase products using natural language. Shopping agents can interface with catalogs, shopping carts, checkout, preferences, and order history, supporting multi-product planning, personalization, and customer service Q&A, while constraining prices and products with catalog data; merchant agents can answer sales performance, track inventory, suggest pricing and promotions, and draft marketing campaigns, proactively suggesting items to be launched after manual approval.

U.S. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno from Ohio urged the U.S. Trade Representative to consider imposing tariffs on South Korea due to its treatment of the American e-commerce company "Coolpeng." Moreno pointed out in his letter that Seoul takes hostile actions against foreign companies, including heavy compliance requirements and biased regulatory enforcement, and requested an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. South Korea denies discriminating against Coolpeng compared to domestic companies.

According to Bits.media, Russia's three major telecom operators MTS, Rostelecom, and Megafon announced that they will start accepting digital ruble payments from September 1. MTS will support the use of digital rubles for all services within its payment module MTS Pay, with no category restrictions. Rostelecom will initially only support one-time payments on its official website, and will later expand to personal accounts; regular payments and automatic top-ups will depend on the readiness of the central bank's platform. Megafon will also offer it as an additional payment method.The two major e-commerce platforms, Wildberries and Ozon, also announced the activation of digital rubles on the same day. According to the law, starting from September 1, all large enterprises in Russia must be able to process digital ruble transactions, and the apps of 12 systemically important banks must have an entry point for digital ruble wallets. The central bank plans to impose limits on the recharge of digital wallets, with a maximum of 300,000 rubles per month through a single bank.

On August 24, consumers discovered that the "SKhynix Flagship Store" homepage had published a notice of termination of operations, intending to voluntarily cease operations on September 9, 2026, with all products removed from the store. As of August 25, the Taobao platform could no longer directly search for this store. Public information shows that the store previously mainly sold SK Hynix brand consumer solid-state drives, and the operating entity was Tianjin Hailisi Technology Co., Ltd. Tianyancha information indicates that this company was registered in July 2020, with a registered capital of 1 million yuan, and its business scope includes technical services, electronic product sales, etc. Public business information has not yet shown any equity, controlling, or direct affiliation with SK Hynix headquarters or its China region.SK Hynix's China region stated that after verification, the "SKhynix Flagship Store" is not directly operated by the company. Regarding the reasons for closing the store, the operation of other related e-commerce stores, authorization situations, and historical order warranty arrangements, they stated that they are currently verifying internally and with relevant parties. This store closure incident has once again sparked speculation about SK Hynix's contraction of its consumer storage business. In January of this year, there were rumors in the market that it planned to stop producing consumer storage devices and exit the consumer DRAM and NAND business. On January 14, a relevant person from SK Hynix publicly denied this, stating that the company is currently not discussing or planning to exit the consumer product business.

RWA e-commerce financing platform Dow Protocol announced the completion of a $10.5 million seed round financing, with participation from MH Ventures, Mapleblock, Animoca Brands, Arcane Group, HSKChain, Essentia Partners, and Quartet Group.According to reports, Dow Protocol builds a PayFi RWA structure for e-commerce operating capital, specifically addressing the working capital needs of e-commerce merchants. Dow Protocol allows merchants to receive funds within seconds by providing loans in advance based on the merchants' accounts receivable and credit risk data through asset service providers. The repayment and risk system is natively integrated into the e-commerce platform, with funds automatically deducted from the merchant's platform balance.

The Lista DAO has launched the Dow E-Commerce Financing RWA Vault of the Dow Protocol today. This Vault is built on the capabilities of HSBC's Dowsure e-commerce financial company, with a term of 90 days and an APY currently reported at 10%.The Vault is supported by the accounts receivable and repayment cash flows of established global leading e-commerce platform merchants, providing funding flow advance services for merchants. It is reported that the repayment discipline of merchants is guaranteed by two core mechanisms: first, an automated repayment service routing mechanism in collaboration with the E-Commerce platform, which prioritizes collecting merchant repayments and automatically deducts principal and interest as agreed; second, a dual-lock account control mechanism, which restricts changes to the repayment path, verifies control over repayment accounts, and supports taking corresponding protective measures in the event of overdue or default situations. The Vault reflects not a set of incentive structures that remain on-chain, but a cash flow system that has been operating in the real business world for a long time and has been validated.

ChainCatcher news, according to Businesswire, cross-border e-commerce DDC Enterprise (NYSE: DDC) announced the purchase of an additional 50 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 1,058 BTC.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bitcoin Magazine, Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries has now started accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency payments from users in Belarus.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, 361 Degrees (01361.HK) announced that the company is currently exploring solutions for payment and settlement using stablecoins, primarily for product sales outside mainland China, including overseas offline stores and e-commerce sales. The company has opened accounts with independent third-party service providers, aiming to enhance payment efficiency, reduce costs, and mitigate exchange rate risks when transacting with overseas customers.

ChainCatcher message, the CEO of Visa stated that cryptocurrency will experience a boom similar to "e-commerce in the 1990s," with widespread adoption expected in the next decade. He emphasized that the widespread use of cryptocurrency is imminent.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the e-commerce platform Shopify announced a partnership with Coinbase and Stripe to support merchants in accepting USDC stablecoin payments issued by Circle. Through this service, consumers can use USDC on the Base chain for payments in 34 countries, and merchants can choose to receive payments in local fiat currency and deposit them directly into their bank accounts.Shopify's Chief Operating Officer stated that this partnership will help merchants easily meet the global demand for stablecoin payments without the need to build their own crypto payment infrastructure. Coinbase has also launched a "Commercial Payment Agreement" in collaboration with Shopify, aimed at addressing the application bottlenecks of cryptocurrency in commercial payment scenarios.

ChainCatcher news, cross-border e-commerce company DDC Enterprise announced the addition of 38 bitcoins to its corporate treasury, bringing its total holdings to 138 BTC. Since May of this year, its bitcoin investment has achieved a 22% return. The company stated that it will continue to implement a strict bitcoin accumulation strategy to further strengthen its strategic goal of becoming a top global corporate treasury.

ChainCatcher news, according to Business Wire, cross-border e-commerce company DDC Enterprise Limited announced the purchase of an additional 79 bitcoins (BTC) as part of its ongoing Bitcoin reserve accumulation strategy, bringing DDC's total Bitcoin holdings to 100.CEO Norma Chu stated that the scarcity and decentralized nature of Bitcoin align closely with the company's resilient financial strategy.

ChainCatcher news, according to bitcoinmagazine, DDC Enterprise announced in its latest shareholder letter that it will incorporate Bitcoin into its strategic reserve assets, planning to accumulate 5,000 BTC over the next 36 months. The company will immediately purchase an initial batch of 100 BTC, with a short-term goal of increasing this to 500 BTC within six months.Founder and CEO Norma Chu stated that this strategy aims to hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty and enhance shareholder returns. This move marks DDC as one of the first companies in the industry to adopt Bitcoin reserves. The company will advance this plan under the guidance of its newly expanded crypto advisory and financial management team.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, e-commerce company Upexi will be using BitGo to custody its Solana (SOL) assets, which have reached a scale of $100 million, and will engage in OTC trading and staking.Recently, Upexi purchased 326,000 locked SOL at an average price of $135.22, bringing its total holdings to 595,000 SOL. The company plans to stake these SOL tokens to earn protocol reward yields and has a $100 million investment commitment supported by GSR for purchasing more SOL.

ChainCatcher news, the global AI×Web3.0×cross-border e-commerce integration event "Nexus 2140" will be held on June 21-22, 2025, at the Goyang International Exhibition Center in South Korea. The South Korean government, in collaboration with over 400 global tech companies, 150+ venture capital firms, and 3000+ industry leaders, will jointly explore new paradigms of digital commerce.The event will feature deep collisions in three major areas: AI technology applications, Web3.0 decentralized ecosystems, and full-link integration of e-commerce innovation. Leveraging South Korea's Web3.0 policy pilot zone and K-pop cultural advantages, it aims to create a tech carnival with tens of thousands of participants—top concerts featuring aespa, ITZY, and others will attract 80 million fans, while the metaverse exhibition area, AI interactive devices, and Web3.0 e-commerce real-world demos will build an immersive future experience. Over 150 investment institutions will be on-site to tap into the trillion-dollar market and discover potential unicorns.