India’s digital payments projected at $10 tln by 2026; Coinbase extends hiring freeze; NASA outsources spacesuits

India’s digital payments industry will triple to touch $10 trillion in total transaction value by 2026, according to a report by PhonePe, Walmart’s Indian fintech unit, and BCG. Coinbase is extending its hiring freeze indefinitely. NASA is outsourcing its Lunar spacesuit development to two companies including Axiom Space, which is backed by investors including India’s Sanjay Mehta. Notes: India’s digital payments industry will triple to touch $10 trillion in total transaction value by 2026, according to a report by Walmart’s Indian fintech unit PhonePe and BCG, a consultancy. Non-cash payments will constitute nearly 65 percent of all payments by 2026, up from 40 percent today, the companies said in a press release. UPI adoption will surge from 35 percent in FY 21 to 75 percent in the next five years. And merchant payments via digital modes will grow from $0.3-0.4 trillion today to $2.5-2.7 trillion by 2026, according to the release. Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges, plans to extend a hiring freeze that it announced two weeks ago into the “foreseeable future.” The company will also be pulling some job offers, CNBC reports. Coinbase said it was informing prospects of the rescinded offers by email on Thursday. The company also said it was extending its severance policy to those individuals and will help them with job placements and resume reviews. “After assessing our business priorities, current headcount, and open roles, we have decided to pause hiring for as long as this macro environment requires,” LJ Brock, Coinbase’s chief people officer, wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “The extended hiring pause will include backfills, except for roles that are necessary … for security and compliance, or to support other mission-critical work,” Brock wrote. Oracle Corp has secured unconditional EU antitrust clearance for its $28.3 billion acquisition of US healthcare IT company Cerner Corp, the EU competition authority said on Thursday, Reuters reports. The acquisition, Oracle's biggest, would give the company access to a large volume of data and could bring more healthcare clients to its cloud platform. NASA announced that two private companies — Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace — will develop the next-generation spacesuits that future astronauts will wear on the Moon, The Verge reports. These new spacesuits will play a critical role in NASA’s Artemis programme, the agency’s flagship initiative to send humans back to the lunar surface. Currently, NASA is aiming to land the first Artemis astronauts on the Moon by 2025. Among Axiom Space’s backers is well-known Indian VC investor Sanjay Mehta, founder of the firm 100x VC. 3DBio Therapeutics (3DBio), a clinical-stage regenerative medicine company, and the Microtia-Congenital Ear Deformity Institute announced yesterday that they have conducted a human ear reconstruction using the AuriNovo implant, an investigational, patient-matched, 3D-bioprinted living tissue ear implant. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds