Major payment network, Visa becomes the first to settle payment with cryptocurrency. The Payment network set directly accepts USD coins, a coin backed by the US dollar. This is to establish a connection between traditional and digital currencies.
In an announcement, Visa made it known that the USD coin will be in use to complete a transaction over Ethereum. Visa is exploring crypto with Crypto.com, one of the biggest crypto platforms in the world. The organization also plans to make offers of USDC settlement to more partners this year.
Kris Marszalek, co-founder, and CEO of Crypto.com said:
“We’ve seen record-breaking growth in our business and the broader crypto ecosystem over the last year. To continue accelerating the world’s transition to cryptocurrency, we need partners who understand the opportunity and the tools that will help us get to market faster and more efficiently. Having been a Visa partner for several years, we’re excited to deepen that relationship through our global agreement and to pioneer an exciting world-first in stablecoin payments.”
This open support for digital currency as currency for payment is a step forward for Visa. Their network can improve all types of money movements both on their platform and beyond. Visa is taking advantage of its popularity, trust, and partnership to promote the value of crypto. This will make cryptocurrencies more secure, useful, and applicable for payments.
Jake Forestell, the Vice President and Chief Product Officer states;
“Crypto-native fintechs want partners who understand their business and the complexities of digital currency form factors,” “The announcement today marks a major milestone in our ability to address the needs of fintech managing their business in a stablecoin or cryptocurrency, and it’s really an extension of what we do every day, securely facilitating payments in all different currencies all across the world.” He concluded
Visa’s Crypto Journey
Over the last year, Visa has been building a pathway for digital currency settlement within Visa’s existing treasury. This is a platform that carries billions of dollars daily. It goes across thousands of institutions in more than 200 markets and 160 currencies. Visa is working with Anchorage to launch a pilot program. Anchorage is the first chartered digital asset bank. It is also an exclusive Visa digital currency settlement partner. This program allows Crypto.com to send USDC to Visa to settle a part of its obligations for the Crypto.com Visa card program.
“Anchorage’s platform has been purposefully built for institutions like Visa to build new products in crypto. We’ve been with Visa every step of the way since 2019 and are extremely pleased to see these first stablecoin payment rails come to life through Anchorage APIs,” said Diogo Mónica, Co-Founder and President of Anchorage.
David Puth, CEO of Centre, which oversees the licensing of USDC, said:
“Visa is leading the market with its innovative approach to payments in many forms. We are very impressed with their efforts. Having USDC on the Visa network is an outstanding next step in our mission to connect the world using built-on Centre standards, starting with USDC.”
