Visa is partnering with 50 leading crypto companies to let users spend digital assets...

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,291   +192
Staff member
The big picture: The beauty of what Visa is offering with its card program is the fact that everyday merchants like grocery stores and coffee shops don’t have to directly accept cryptocurrencies to do business with those holding digital currency. So long as they accept Visa cards, which some 70 million merchants worldwide now do, they’re good to go.

Visa has announced a partnership with 50 of the top crypto platforms, including Coinbase, FTX and CoinZoom, that’ll make it easier for users to convert and spend their digital currency at millions of merchants around the globe.

“It will be the same as any other Visa transaction to them,” Visa crypto boss Cuy Sheffield told Business Insider. “But on the backend, the crypto assets are instantly converted into fiat.”

Crypto is increasingly being used not only as a store of value, but as tradeable currency. In the first half of 2021 alone, Visa said more than $1 billion was spent on crypto-linked Visa cards. Furthermore, a quarter of the companies participating in Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program are working to issue Visa plastic linked to a crypto platform.

“You have this growing number of consumers with assets on crypto platforms, trading crypto, holding crypto - and then millions of merchants who don't really understand crypto. They don't want to have to update their point of sales and terminals and figure out what a blockchain is.” – Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto.

One of the perks that Visa highlighted is a rewards program that allows consumers to spend fiat and earn crypto rewards, similar to how traditional rewards programs issue airline miles or hotel points for spending money. Visa believes such a program could help it win long-term customer loyalty among both new and seasoned crypto enthusiasts.

Permalink to story.

 
Money launderers rejoice!

But seriously: I think both Visa and crypto bros really want this to legitimize the coins but if enough criminal activity starts being linked back to Crypto-to-visa transactions then it will have the exact opposite effect.

But of course bankers are anything but stupid so maybe this is just Microsoft tactics at play (Embrace, Expand, Extinguish) and are calculating that once there's widespread adoption and widespread outrage that they can just wrestle the coin away from everybody and turning it into just another form of regulated currency, while crypto people just insist they can start over on some other smaller coin (Which probably wont work tbh)
 
This news is great, for now. Visa is acting as the bridge between crypto and the traditional financial world. As of now, this service is needed, because crypto itself is not widespread enough yet to be used without an intermediary. It basically goes over the majority of people's head. A friend of mine that is in IT still doesn't grasp DeFi, and that is saying something. The user interface and ease of use definitely need improvement. And until then, the likes of Visa will dominate, simply because they have already tackled the ease of use aspect of finance.

But as time goes on, the likes of Visa will become more and more irrelevant. Traditional payment networks, which includes banks, intermediaries like Google Pay, Apple Pay, Visa, PayPal etc, will all be irrelevant soon. They are indeed trying to... well, not extinguish crypto, because really, they can't, but, they are trying to incorporate it into the traditional system to keep that old system afloat. Because that is where their market is. But the traditional system is dying. We have technology that supersedes it, and, it's only a matter of time before the old one is gone. There is a reason CBDCs are being talked about, and they are yet another attempt to keep crypto at bay. And they will fail.

Some of you need to try some DeFi. Do it on Polygon or Solana, and you'll find out very quickly how great crypto really is. Fees are high on Ethereum but Polygon fixes that. Meanwhile, Solana is the fastest blockchain out there with extremely low fees.

Thank me later.
 
10,800 crypto “currencies”

Which one is supposed to replace the dollar again?
Possibly USDT.... biggest Market share, a better question is which one of the cryptos will they use for rewards, as crypto.com reward you with CRO when using their card, coinbase suck they dont reward
 
Possibly USDT.... biggest Market share, a better question is which one of the cryptos will they use for rewards, as crypto.com reward you with CRO when using their card, coinbase suck they dont reward
That's as ignorant as it could get. USDT is the biggest scam in the Universe and has the potential to make the whole crypto world (and maybe not just the crypto world) to collapse.

 
USDC is getting a big enough market share, that USDT's impact, while significant, will not kill the crypto market anymore. Besides, Visa themselves use USDC through Ethereum.
 
Back