Recently, the largest payment systems Visa, Mastercard and PayPal have significantly changed their views on cryptocurrencies. If earlier they were wary of them, now they have become more supportive. What does this mean and what does such actions mean for investors?
Visa, Mastercard and PayPal unanimously declare that they are ready to integrate crypto-payments into their payment systems. At the same time, back in 2018, Visa CFO Vasant Prabhu said that “bitcoin is a bubble.” But soon the payment system began to cooperate with the two largest trading platforms Coinbase and Fold, stating that joint work with crypto exchanges is part of its strategy to introduce digital currencies into the payment system.
In 2021, Visa became interested in the Ethereum cryptocurrency network. The company’s specialists conducted a pilot transaction using the blockchain of this digital currency. Now Visa wants to provide this service to most of its partners by the end of 2021. In addition, Visa announced the release at the end of this year of its own system for the purchase of cryptocurrencies, which will be integrated with banks.
The situation is similar with Mastercard. If a few years ago, top manager of the payment system Ajay Banga compared cryptocurrencies to “garbage”, now their attitude towards these assets has changed dramatically. The company plans to support transactions with digital assets directly through its network, primarily with stablecoins.
PayPal is also actively developing applications for working with cryptocurrencies. At the end of July, the payment system announced the launch of its own crypto wallet for clients in the United States, and on August 23 it allowed British clients to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies.
What does this mean?
The interest in cryptocurrencies among the largest payment systems is an important step that indicates the total acceptance of digital currencies in the traditional finance market. Cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming part of the community. This trend is confirmed by the growth of capitalization. If at the beginning of 2018, shortly before the statements of top managers of payment systems, the capitalization of the cryptocurrency market did not reach $850 billion, then by the end of August 2021 it confidently crossed the $2 trillion mark.
Source: https://coinmarketcap..com/charts/
Market participants realized that digital assets are not only a speculative instrument with high volatility and a means for money laundering, but also a convenient payment system. The advantages of blockchain, first of all, are the speed, security and transparency of payments.
Further integration of cryptocurrencies into the market of traditional finance will lead to an increase in their popularity among investors and, accordingly, to an increase in rates.
Author: Dmitry Noskov is an expert at StormGain, a platform for trading, purchasing and storing cryptocurrency
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