One of the world¡¯s largest financial institutions backing most credit and debit cards in the world, Visa has announced that it will now allow the use of cryptocurrency through its platform.
Reported first by Reuters, it has announced that it will allow the use of USD Coin -- a virtual US dollar, a form of cryptocurrency. The company announced that it is working on a pilot program with payments and cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com and it will extend this with more partners in the latter half of this year.?
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One thing crucial to note here is that it is only allowing transacting through USD Coin cryptocurrency, which has its value pegged directly to the U.S. dollar, unlike the popular Bitcoin which not only is regarded as the most popular cryptocurrency platform in the world but is also currently sitting at a value of $58,000 with the value on the rise and on its way to its previous record-breaking value off $61,000.
Visa¡¯s implementation of accepting crypto payments is made possible with it teaming up with digital asset bank Anchorage and Crypto.com¡¯s Visa card.?
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It is using Ethereum blockchain that eliminates the need to convert digital coin into traditional money. Earlier it would require Crypto.com to convert the bitcoin into regular money and then send it to Visa, which had several steps that made the process a lot more complex. However, now, Crypto directly sends USD Coin cryptocurrency to Visa¡¯s own Ethereum address at Anchorage.
Visa is the next in line to take cryptocurrency seriously after several financial institutions like Mastercard, BlackRock Inc and BNY Mellon have made their move to make use of cryptocurrencies for investments and payments.?
Just last week, we saw Elon Musk announce that Tesla will accept Bitcoin as payment for its electric car and truck purchases.?
Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, said in a statement, "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."
It¡¯ll be interesting to see if Visa adds support for other kinds of cryptocurrency including the popular ones like Dogecoin and Bitcoin.?