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Visa pushes crypto into the global mainstream

The crypto market might be crashing, but Visa is bullish all the way. The leading card payment organization is partnering with over 50 cryptocurrency companies, making it super easy to convert and spend digital currencies around the world.

Visa is the second largest card payment organization in the world, and it’s putting its weight behind the future of crypto adoption. Visa started making moves to get on the ride side of crypto history last year as a growing list of companies began to consider digital currencies as actual forms of payment; partnering with Goldman Sachs-backed blockchain company Circle to make its USD Coin stablecoin compatible with specific credit cards. Since then it has continued to affirm its commitment to aggressively pursuing crypto payments, and has invested in several crypto payments start-ups, like Zap.

We believe that we are uniquely positioned to help make cryptocurrencies more safe, useful and applicable for payments,

said CEO Al Kelly said during the company’s Q1 earnings call.

In another bold move, Visa will further develop its crypto payments capability by partnering with over 50 cryptocurrency companies, including FTX and Coinbase (COIN), so that clients can spend and convert digital currencies through its card program. What that basically means is that people can use their digital assets to buy things at the 70 million worldwide merchants that Visa is connected to, even if those companies themselves do not accept digital assets – which is pretty huge for global mainstream crypto adoption.

We are doing a lot to create an ecosystem that makes crypto currency more usable and more like any other currency. People are exploring ways in which they can use cryptocurrencies for things they would use normal currencies for. There are lots of issues in terms of volatility, etc. But that’s up to the owners of cryptocurrencies to manage and track.

Visa CFO Vasant Prabhu said.

Visa also noted on Wednesday that over $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency was spent by consumers globally through crypto-linked cards in the first half of 2021, only a fraction of the amount spent in the first half of the last two years – so clearly there is more to unlock.