(8 July 2021 – Global) More than $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency was spent around the world on crypto-linked Visa cards in the first half of the year.
After years of reluctance, Visa has recently embraced crypto and now partners with 50 firms in the space on card programmes that make it easy to convert and spend the likes of bitcoin at 70 million merchants worldwide.
The card giant says that it is helping to make crypto a viable payments options – and not just speculative investment – by making the process easy.
Coffee shops, dry cleaners and grocery stores do not need to directly accept cryptocurrencies at the checkout but can simply let customers tap a Visa card as normal.
Among the crypto firms taking advantage of Visa's expertise and treasury infrastructure are FTX, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and CoinZoom, which are building new tools that move beyond payments to areas like lending and direct deposits.
Visa is also eying the emerging stablecoin market, noting that there is $100 billion worth of stablecoins in circulation and hundreds of billions exchanged each month on public blockchains.
“We are doing a lot to create an ecosystem that makes crypto currency more usable and more like any other currency,” Visa CFO Vasant Prabhu told CNBC. “People are exploring ways in which they can use cryptocurrencies for things they would use normal currencies for.”