Visa To Start Settling Transactions With Bitcoin Visa To Start Settling Transactions With Bitcoin Partners In USDC
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2021/03/29/visa-to-start-settling-transactions-with-bitcoin-partners-in-usdc/?sh=30936d1f5228
Visa is piloting transaction settlement in stablecoins on the ethereum blockchain.
Credit card provider Visa today announced it accepted the first settlement payment in U.S. Dollar Coin (USDC), a cryptocurrency pegged to U.S. dollar in a 1:1 ratio, from its global crypto wallet partner Crypto.com over the ethereum blockchain. This marks the launch of a pilot which would allow Crypto.com to settle a portion of its obligations for the Crypto.com Visa card program in USDC. On the backend, Anchorage, the first federally chartered digital asset bank and Visa’s digital currency settlement partner, acted as a custodian, with funds being sent from Crypto.com to Visa’s ethereum address at the bank. Visa plans to extend the offer to additional partners later this year.
The existing settlement process requires Visa’s business partners to settle transactions in fiat currency that the company accepts, meaning part of a partner’s crypto treasury reserves would have to be converted at an additional cost of a conversion rate. With the upgrade, Visa’s partners will soon be able to settle their obligations with the company directly in USDC. The credit card giant is already partnering with 35 digital currency platforms, including Coinbase, Crypto.com, BlockFi and Bitpanda, which collectively have more than 50 million active users.
“We've found that many of our crypto partners are building on top of and are using USDC,” with many of them paying their employees and vendors with the stablecoin, says Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa. “It was a natural fit.”