Leggi questo articolo in Italiano
Mastercard and “Venmo Crypto”: is mass adoption near?
By Davide Grammatica
Payment giant Mastercard wants to create a crypto network to facilitate cryptocurrency payments among its more than 3.5 billion customers
Mastercard's new challenge
Mastercard‘s work on the blockchain front, which began way back in 2015 with the first patents, may have reached a turning point. As revealed by Business Insider, the payments giant would like to expand the scope of its “multi-token” network, to replicate its payment infrastructure in the world of digital assets for consumers, merchants and financial institutions.
The idea would be to create an app like Venmo, one of the most popular tools in the USA for transferring money between friends and family. However, Mastercard’s reach would be immense, with billions of customers already using its services, and it could be a game changer in terms of cryptocurrency adoption.
The operation would also have the favor of banking giants such as JPMorgan Chase, Standard Chartered and others, who are already exploring other crypto solutions in the field of cross-border payments and asset tokenization.
Crypto for 3.5 billion customers
A Mastercard blockchain has been in existence since 2023, and serves as the basis for the operations of several financial institutions. The idea is to expand the potential of an existing infrastructure, bringing cryptocurrencies to a huge user base.
There are about 3.5 billion Mastercard cardholders, who could have a common tool to move money between the fiat and crypto worlds.
According to Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President of “Blockchain and Digital Assets” at Mastercard, regulatory uncertainty has in the past precluded such a development. However, with the change of the US administration, the conditions are being created for a “Venmo Crypto” to land on the market.
In addition to regulatory challenges, market volatility is a concern, but the impression is that Mastercard wants to bet on the sector anyway, gaining a strategic position in a context of strong development. If new regulatory certainty is followed by less investor uncertainty, the company’s advantages could be substantial in the years to come.
