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Riyadh Air and Mastercard Forge Strategic Alliance to Launch ‘Digital-First’ Payment Ecosystem

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Riyadh Air, Saudi Arabia’s new digitally-native national carrier, has entered into a major strategic partnership with Mastercard to develop a comprehensive financial and payments ecosystem for the airline.

The alliance will see the two companies collaborate on a range of initiatives, from co-branded consumer cards to a “global-first” B2B settlement solution for the travel trade.

Capitalising on a clean slate

As a new carrier with no legacy systems to overhaul, Riyadh Air is positioning itself to build a modern financial stack from the ground up. The partnership aims to leverage this “clean sheet” advantage to create an integrated digital ecosystem that spans the entire passenger journey.

Adam Boukadida, chief financial officer at Riyadh Air, commented on the unique opportunity: “We are fortunate to be in a highly unique situation where we can implement many different solutions at the same time, from integrated payments and rewards to premium airport experiences and innovative virtual payment solutions. This collaboration enables us to deliver exceptional journeys for our guests around the world.”

Consumer and B2B innovation

The collaboration will result in the launch of Riyadh Air-branded Mastercard credit and prepaid cards, set to roll out to Saudi residents in late 2026. These digital-first cards will be fully integrated into the airline’s mobile app, allowing users to apply, manage features, and track rewards—such as flights and upgrades—within a single interface.

On the B2B front, the partnership plans to introduce an airline-branded virtual card program for travel trade settlements—a move Riyadh Air claims is a global first for an airline. This solution is designed to offer travel agents and intermediaries improved efficiency, security, and reconciliation capabilities.

Dr. Dimitrios Dosis, president, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa at Mastercard, said: “Together with Riyadh Air, we are creating an integrated digitally-native ecosystem that delivers value at every touchpoint—for guests, travel agents, airlines and hospitality partners—while reinforcing Saudi Arabia’s role as a global travel hub.”

A centre for innovation

To sustain this digital momentum, the partners have also committed to establishing a joint Center of Excellence. This hub will focus on designing and testing new payment solutions, leveraging “agentic innovation” and shared data insights to respond rapidly to changing market needs.

The initiative aligns with Saudi Arabia’s broader Vision 2030 goals, as the Kingdom invests heavily in infrastructure and tourism to diversify its economy. According to Mastercard’s Travel Trends Report 2025, Riyadh is already experiencing a sharp surge in passenger traffic, reflecting the country’s growing status as a global transit hub.

Citadel Securities backs LayerZero as it unveils ‘Zero’ blockchain for global markets

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LayerZero Labs on Tuesday unveiled Zero, a new blockchain aimed at powering institutional-grade financial markets, alongside a strategic investment from Citadel Securities into ZRO, the network’s native token and governance asset.

ARK Invest is also investing in LayerZero’s equity and ZRO token, with CEO Cathie Wood joining a newly formed advisory board alongside ICE executive Michael Blaugrund and former BNY Mellon digital assets head Caroline Butler, the company said in a press release. The size of the investments were not disclosed.

The announcement signals a deeper push by traditional market infrastructure players into blockchain-based trading, clearing and settlement, as scalability and performance constraints have long limited real-world adoption.

Tether Investments, the investment arm of the leading stablecoin issuer, has also made a strategic investment in LayerZero Labs, it said earlier on Tuesday.

Citadel Securities said it is working with LayerZero to evaluate how Zero’s architecture could support high-throughput workflows across trading and post-trade processes. The firm’s investment in ZRO adds to growing institutional interest in LayerZero, which is best known for operating one of crypto’s largest interoperability networks.

After years of pilot projects and cautious experimentation, large financial institutions are moving more decisively into crypto as infrastructure improves and regulatory clarity advances. Asset managers, exchanges and clearing houses are increasingly viewing blockchains not as speculative rails but as potential upgrades to legacy systems, particularly for trading, settlement and collateral management. The shift reflects a growing belief that crypto-native technology is maturing enough to support real-world financial markets at scale.

Zero is designed around LayerZero’s first-of-its-kind heterogeneous architecture, which uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to separate transaction execution from verification. The company claims the design can scale to roughly 2 million transactions per second across multiple zones, with transaction costs approaching a millionth of a dollar and effectively unlimited blockspace.

Zero-knowledge proofs let blockchains verify that a statement is true without revealing the underlying data, preserving privacy while ensuring validity.

LayerZero said the system delivers step-change improvements across compute, storage, networking and cryptography, allowing different zones to be optimized for specific use cases rather than forcing all nodes to perform identical work.

The project is launching in collaboration with several major institutions. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) said it will explore using Zero to enhance the scalability of its tokenization and collateral initiatives, while Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, is examining applications tied to 24/7 trading and tokenized collateral. Google Cloud is partnering with LayerZero to explore blockchain-based micropayments and resource trading for AI agents, reflecting growing interest in programmable money for machine-driven economies.

“Zero’s architecture moves the industry’s roadmap forward by at least a decade,” said Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, in the release. “We believe we can actually bring the entire global economy onchain with this technology.

The blockchain is set to debut with three initial zones: a general-purpose Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) environment, a privacy-focused payments system, and a purpose-built trading venue. ZRO will anchor network governance and security, while LayerZero’s interoperability stack links Zero to more than 165 blockchains.

Read more: Robinhood is investing in crypto trading platform Talos at $1.5 billion valuation

SkyBridge’s Scaramucci is buying the bitcoin dip, calls Trump a crypto President

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SkyBridge Capital’s founder, Anthony Scaramucci, said on Wednesday that he is buying bitcoin during the market downturn and described Donald Trump as a “crypto president.”

“So 10 days ago, we were buying Bitcoin at 84,000 last week, we’re buying Bitcoin at 63,000 bitcoin this week, we’re buyers of Bitcoin in this market, again,” Scaramucci said during a conversation with Bullish’s CEO Tom Farley at Consensus Hong Kong.

He added that buying bitcoin in a downward-trending market is akin to catching a falling knife.

Bitcoin recently crashed to nearly $60,000, after hitting a peak of over $126,000 in October this year. Prices have recovered slightly to $69,000 since then amid signs of capitulation in the bitcoin ETF market.

Scaramucci called President Donald Trump a much better President for crypto than his predecessor, but added that Trump’s geopolitical shenanigans, such as his Greenland ambitions, embolden rival Democrats to oppose him on various policies, including those that affect digital assets.

“I’ll just say to you that, like, the Greenland stuff, believe it or not, is actually tied to the industry. If he does stuff like that, it upsets the opposition to the point where they’re like, You know what? We don’t want him to win on anything, and even if it’s going to spite ourselves and cut our own horses off, we will vote against the crypto bill to hurt Donald Trump,” he explained.

Speaking of Layer 1s, Scaramucci said that programmable blockchain Solana will be one of the biggest market share gatherers.

Fairshake Supporting Barry Moore’s Senate Bid With $5M

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Defend American Jobs, an affiliate of crypto super political action committee (PAC) Fairshake, will reportedly spend $5 million to support crypto-friendly politician Barry Moore in his bid for the US Senate, according to Bloomberg.

A five-week campaign will start this week with ads on broadcast TV and the Fox News Channel featuring US President Donald Trump endorsing Moore, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing a statement from Fairshake.

Super PACs raise money from corporations and associations; however, the committees can’t directly donate to or coordinate with political campaigns. Instead, they fund ads and other media to urge voters to support a specific candidate.

“We are proud to stand with Barry Moore, a leader who will fight for economic growth and make America the crypto capital,” Fairshake reportedly said in a statement.

Fairshake is one of the most prominent crypto-related PACs, backed by crypto companies including Coinbase and Ripple Labs.

It spent roughly $130 million during the 2024 US elections to support pro-crypto candidates. The election ended with a flood of elected officials with pro-crypto views.

Moore is labeled ‘strongly supportive’ of crypto

Moore was first elected to the US House in 2020 and was part of the US House Agriculture Committee, which included the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on its agenda last year.

He has also expressed crypto-friendly sentiment in the past. In an X post on Dec. 5, he appeared to approve of Trump’s crypto stance and related executive orders.

“Crypto is not a fad. It is part of our future. It is part of Alabama’s future,” Moore said.

Source: Barry Moore 

A survey of 500 Republican voters, reported by the Alabama Daily News, found that 26s would vote for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall if the election were held in February. About 17% said they would vote for Moore.

Related: Trump Bitcoin adviser David Bailey wants to create a $200M PAC

Both have a rating of “strongly supportive” of crypto by advocacy organization Stand With Crypto, which compiles previous statements and actions to rate US politicians on their crypto stances.

Crypto PACs spend big on the industry

The US midterm primary elections are held in May, when each party will choose its nominee, followed by the general election on Nov. 3, when voters decide who will be elected.

Fairshake disclosed in January that it had amassed $193 million in cash ahead of the midterm elections. The Gemini Trust Company and Foris Dax, the parent company of Crypto.com, sent $21 million to a Trump-aligned PAC last year, which could also come into play in the midterms.

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