Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies fell on Tuesday as Bitcoin dipped below $6,300.
Bitcoin slumped 1.94% to $6,323.50 on the Bitfinex exchange as of 8:39 AM ET (12:39 GMT).
Cryptocurrencies overall were slightly lower with the coin market cap of total market capitalization at $197 billion at the time of writing, compared to $201 billion on Monday.
Ethereum, or Ether, the second-biggest alternative currency by market cap, fell 4.63% to $207.73. XRP, the third-largest virtual currency, was up 8.83% to $0.30647 and Litecoin was at $53.448, down 3.97%.
Global payments giant Mastercard (NYSE:MA) has developed a blockchain-based system to bring high-volume business-to-business transactions up to date, according to a three patent applications published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
In the applications, MasterCard said that blockchain could be used by B2B teams to store data clearly and in a format that is easily readable by participating parties.
“In cases where ledgers like blockchains are used, the ledgers may be provided even more benefits as they may be immutable and resistant to tampering, which may further increase the reliability of such data,” the patent noted.
In other news, Ripple is launching a product to help banks speed up transactions.
Sagar Sarbhai, head of regulatory relations for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East at Ripple, said on Monday that xRapid would be up and running soon.
"I am very confident that in the next one month or so you will see some good news coming in where we launch the product live in production," Sarbhai said of xRapid in an interview with CNBC.
Meanwhile, Bancor, a smart token liquidity provider, is moving into cross-chain liquidity. The company will allow users to trade between a range of EOS and Ethereum tokens. Previously the company was a mainstay of the Ethereum network.