Visa to accept cryptocurrency for transactions

Visa Inc, an American multinational financial services corporation, announced on Monday that it will permit the use of the cryptocurrency USD Coin to settle transactions on its payment network, a move conceived to be the genesis of digital currencies acceptance by the mainstream financial industry.

The financial services corporation headquartered in Foster City of the United States, said it has launched the pilot programme with payment and crypto platform Crypto.com, amidst plans to offer the option to more partners later this year, a Reuters report said.

According to the report, the USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin cryptocurrency whose value is pegged directly to the U.S. dollar.

It noted that the move by Visa comes as major finance firms including BNY Mellon, BlackRock Inc and Mastercard Inc embraced some digital coins, which triggered predictions that cryptocurrencies will become a regular part of investment portfolios.

On March 24, Elon Musk, the owner of the electric car maker, Tesla, announced that a Tesla vehicle can now be bought with the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. This further established a significant support for the cryptocurrency’s use in commerce.

ALSO READ: Tesla now accepting Bitcoin for its vehicles – Elon Musk

Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, was quoted to have said ; “We see increasing demand from consumers across the world to be able to access, hold and use digital currencies and we’re seeing demand from our clients to be able to build products that provide that access for consumers.”

“Traditionally, if a customer chooses to use a Crypto.com Visa card to pay for a coffee, the digital currency held in a cryptocurrency wallet needs to be converted into traditional money,” the report reads in part.

How does this work?

The cryptocurrency wallet will deposit traditional fiat currency in a bank account, to be wired to Visa at the end of the day to settle any transactions, adding cost and complexity for businesses, Reuters report noted.

It said the Visa’s latest step, which will use the ethereum blockchain, strips out the need to convert digital coins into traditional money in order for the transaction to be settled.

Meanwhile, Visa said it has partnered with digital asset bank Anchorage and completed the first transaction this month with Crypto.com sending USDC to Visa’s Ethereum address at Anchorage.

The price of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency has increased by 3.54 per cent in the last 24 hours, according to coinmarketcap.com.

Within this period, Bitcoin touched a low of $55,071 and a high of $58,342 per BTC, with 7.13 per cent increase in trading volume.

As at 02:18 Nigerian time, the price of the digital currency is pegged at $58,031.62.