Visa has blossomed into a supporter of blockchain and DLT. What has the payment service provider done for the crypto market in 2021?
Already in March 2021, Visa boss Alfred Kelly and journalist Alan Murray met in a podcast to discuss the topic of blockchain. Even then, the Visa boss was extremely crypto-savvy. He saw a great opportunity in Bitcoin. And obviously he still does. Because Visa had an impressive number of points of contact with the crypto space in the first half of the year.
Even if the last time has been a bit rough for Bitcoin and it is uncertain what the further course of the courses will look like: The cryptocurrency market still has a market capitalization of over 2 trillion US dollars on September 14th. Just a few months ago, Bitcoin hit a new all-time high at $ 64,863. To According to research by the Singaporean company “TripleA”, 3.9 percent of the world’s population own cryptocurrencies in 2021. That is around 300 million people, and 38 million Europeans alone are said to use crypto currencies.
Comparison of the growth rates
If the question arises in the crypto space when Bitcoin is really mainstream, then some crypto enthusiasts consider the user growth rates of the Internet. So if you take these growth rates and apply them to Bitcoin, Bitcoin could really have landed in the “mainstream” by 2025 with a billion worldwide users. A magnitude that would be comparable to the state of the Internet in 2005.
A magnitude that Visa boss Alfred Kelly believes is possible:
I don’t know how far cryptocurrencies will go in the next five years. Let’s say five years from now it will turn out that cryptocurrencies were just a fad and not a big deal. Or maybe they will be extremely popular? I’m not smart enough to know, but I’m smart enough to make Visa right in the middle of it today.
Visa prepared for everything
If cryptocurrencies prevail, we want to get our fair share of the volume. We think it could turn into big business. And so of course we want to be prepared for it and I think we’ve got off to a good start.
Visa CEO Alfred Kelly
Since Visa is one of the world’s largest providers of credit and debit cards, it is not surprising that the company has now also fought for a pioneering role in crypto cards. Most of the companies that offer such cards rely on Visa. In the first half of 2021, impressive sums of over one billion US dollars in total expenditure are said to have flowed through crypto cards, supported by Visa. Visa can look back on partnerships with over 50 crypto companies. This gives customers the opportunity to pay with cryptocurrencies at over 70 million merchants.
But it’s not only with crypto cards that Visa has a foot in the door. On August 31, BTC-ECHO reported on a 17-page whitepaper from Visa. It was about non-fungible tokens (NFT). NFT offers a wide range of lucrative application options for the sports industry, it says. Among other things, NFT art, NFT video games and fan merchandise shops that are based on NFT technology.
Ultimately, it can be stated that Visa is a big supporter of cryptocurrencies and a not to be despised driver for their mass adoption. There are few companies that have such a great influence on the fortunes of the crypto market and the success of cryptocurrencies worldwide.