Visa to start accepting USD coin cryptocurrency
Financial service company Visa Inc. has announced that it will start accepting USD Coin (USDC) cryptocurrency as a form of payment settlement on its payment platform.
According to a statement by the company reported by Binance, it said that the USD Coin can be used to settle a transaction with Visa over Ethereum.
“By harnessing its global presence, partnership approach, and trusted brand, Visa is focused on adding differentiated value to the ecosystem and making cryptocurrencies more secure, useful, and applicable for payments,” the company said in a statement.
Visa is piloting the capability with Crypto.com and plans to offer the USDC settlement capability to additional partners later this year. The company is also working with Anchorage, the first federally chartered digital asset bank, on the solution.
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Head of crypto at Visa Cuy Sheffield said “We’ve found that many of our crypto partners are building on top of and are using USDC,” with many of them paying their employees and vendors with the stable coin “It was a natural fit.”
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
The USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin cryptocurrency whose value is pegged directly to the U.S. dollar Reuters reported
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Visa’s move comes as major financial firms including BNY Mellon, BlackRock Inc, and Mastercard Inc have embraced some digital coins, sparking predictions that cryptocurrencies will become a regular part of investment portfolios.
Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk said last week that customers can buy its electric vehicles with bitcoin, marking a significant step forward for the cryptocurrency’s use in commerce.
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 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.
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Visa is already partnering with 35 digital currency platforms, including Coinbase, Crypto.com, BlockFi and Bitpanda, which collectively have more than 50 million active users.