Already 1 billion in sales with crypto debit cards this year
Visa debit cards linked to crypto assets are becoming increasingly popular. That’s why Visa wants to cooperate with even more providers in the future.
$ 1 billion. That is how much the users of such cards spent on services and goods in the first half of the year alone, said Visa’s CFO Vasant Prabhu on Wednesday opposite the news channel CNBC.
“We want to create an ecosystem that makes cryptocurrencies more useful,” said Prabhu. People are slowly exploring new ways to use crypto currencies where they have previously only paid with traditional fiat currencies. Although there is still the problem of strong price fluctuations, the crypto users could manage that themselves, according to Prabhu.
Visa has been working with numerous partners for a long time to bring together cryptocurrencies and retailers worldwide. These include exchanges and marketplaces like Coinbase, Binance and crypto.com, lenders like Blockfi and service providers like Circle. With the Visa debit card from Coinbase, for example, it has been possible since 2019 to make transactions in shops or online services like with a normal Visa card, only with the difference that the money is debited from the owner’s crypto wallet and sent to the current rate is converted into fiat currency. This has recently also been working in Apple Pay and Google Pay. The debit card is now expected to be accepted by around 70 million retailers worldwide.
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“The dealers don’t have to change anything for this”
If Visa has its way, such collaborations should be expanded. Business Insider reports of 50 crypto companies, through which it should soon be possible to pay with crypto currencies such as Bitcoin or Ether even with merchants who do not actually accept them. “The merchants don’t have to change anything,” says Cuy Sheffield, who is responsible for crypto currencies at Visa, “for them it works like any other Visa transaction”. Only in the backend are the crypto assets exchanged for fiat currency in real time.
There will also be further bonus programs for users of the crypto-supported Visa card in the future: Depending on the platform, they could receive crypto assets with every transaction, similar to what is known from classic bonus programs such as airline miles or Payback.
In addition to Visa, competitor Mastercard is now also committed to cryptocurrencies. In April confirmed Mastercardto want to cooperate with the Gemini platform and to present a kind of crypto credit card with a reward program this summer. According to a survey by the company from the spring, 75 percent of all millennials are now interested in paying with cryptocurrencies – if they understand them better.
