Visa pilots US stablecoin with Crypto.com to settle transactions
Visa unveiled its pilot with Crypto.com to trial a US stablecoin to settle transactions on its payment network, Reuters reports.
The USD Coin option, which is pegged to the US dollar, will become available to more partners “later this year”, the card issuing giant said on Monday.
Other incumbents have moved to support cryptocurrency too
“We see increasing demand from consumers across the world to be able to access, hold and use digital currencies,” says Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto.
“And we’re seeing demand from our clients to be able to build products that provide that access for consumers.”
Until now, Crypto.com Visa card users would need their digital currency to convert into traditional money before it could be spent.
Visa’s pilot will use the Ethereum blockchain. Hence getting rid of the need for a user’s digital currency to convert into traditional money for the transaction to be settled.
Digital asset bank Anchorage facilitated the first transaction this month. This saw Crypto.com send USDC to Visa’s Ethereum address at Anchorage.
A number of other incumbents have moved to support cryptocurrency. First reported by The Wall Street Journal, BNY Mellon announced plans last month to finance cryptocurrencies later this year.
Whilst PayPal introduced the buy, sell and hold of cryptocurrency back in October for US digital wallet owners.
PayPal has since said the addition of cryptocurrency capabilities has driven user activity. Those who activated the feature last year logged into PayPal at twice the rate they did before.
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