Last week, Zap and Visa (V  ) announced that they are partnering on a new fintech product. Bitcoin Lightning startup Zap unveiled the public beta of Strike, which lets users receive Bitcoin as dollars via direct bank deposits. Strike allows each user a unique, public website where people can send Bitcoin by simply scanning a QR code. So far, Strike is mostly used by small businesses and customers. The aim is to let anyone in the world anonymously send Bitcoin to people with US bank accounts or credit cards. CEO Jack Mallers added Zap joined Visa's Fast Track program, meaning a Visa card is also in the pipeline. Mallers noted his primary focus this year is launching a Strike card for consumer app users and integrating Visa Direct into the consumer app, the program that makes PayPal's (PYPL  ) Venmo payments so fast. There is no release date for the upcoming Strike Visa card yet.

Here is the rest of the week in review:

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is laying the groundwork for a potential assault on privacy-enhancing cryptocurrency technologies. IRS-CI Cyber Crimes Unit challenged its "industry partners" to explain where the crypto tracing community stands on privacy coins, Layer 2 protocols, and other privacy technologies in a June 30 request for information. The IRS said: "There are few investigative resources for tracing transactions" that move across several privacy-enhancing vectors. The IRS singled out the Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), Dash (DASH), Grin (GRIN), Komodo (KMD), Verge (XVG), and Horizen (ZEN) privacy coins, sidechains Plasma and OmiseGo (OMG), and Layer 2 protocol networks Lightning, Raiden, and Celer. The tax agency also lamented the Bitcoin blockchain's plans to integrate Schnorr signatures, arguing the move would undermine IRS agents' current blockchain analysis tracing techniques. The IRS is also studying the cost of the initiative.

InCore Bank AG became the first financial institution in Switzerland to offer banking services to clients of the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange. The move announced Thursday means EU clients will be able to fund their accounts using Single Euro Payments Area deposits, the payment integration project the EU designed. The firms added the move could help institutions and traders seeking alternative sources of capital value during an "uncertain macroeconomic climate." InCore CEO said: "As digital assets, cryptocurrencies are a valuable addition to modern asset management and will be indispensable as a payment and investment value in the future." The firms plan to enable deposits in British pounds (GBP), Swiss francs (CHF), and Canadian dollars (CAD) in the third quarter. According to a recent study, Kraken possesses the deepest Bitcoin to euro liquidity in Europe and is rated the 10th largest crypto exchange globally by trade volume.

Crypto prices edged down to $259 billion this week. For the majors, Cardano (ADA) and Crpyto.com (CRO) posted outsized gains, while Bitcoin SV (BSV) and Ripple (XRP) slipped. In the top 100, the biggest losers were The Midas Touch Gold (TMTG), down 31%, Compound (COMP), down 14%, and Bitcoin Gold (BTG), down 11%. The biggest gainers were VeChain (VET), up a whopping 62%, Kyber Network (KNC), up 47%, and Synthethix Network (SNX), up 43%. Next week traders will continue watching for signs of renewed volatility.

The author owns a small amount of BTC.