Mastercard Will Support Crypto Payments In 2021: Report

Mastercard will support crypto payments in 2021 as the company moves beyond crypto cards with “select cryptocurrencies” but not Bitcoin so let’s read more about our latest cryptocurrency news.

Mastercard will support crypto payments for customer-to-merchant payments in cryptocurrency this year without having to settle in fiat. The announcement made clear that Mastercard is interested in integrating the stablecoins rather than Bitcoin itself. The announcement made it clear that Mastercard is interested in integrating stablecoins rather than assets such as BTC. Visa also considers running crypto on its network.

Mastercard is a big player in the world of finance and payments and it just announced that it will be getting into cryptocurrency. In a blog post that was posted today, the company announced that it will “Start supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on the network in 2021.” Mastercard works with crypto already because of its partnership with Wirex and BitPay on crypto debit cards, and today’s announcement only shows that the company is allowing cryptocurrencies will move right into the actual network.  The blog post explained:

“Our crypto partners convert the digital assets on their end to traditional currencies, then transmit them through to the Mastercard network. Our change to supporting digital assets directly will allow many more merchants to accept crypto—an ability that’s currently limited by proprietary methods unique to each digital asset. This change will also cut out inefficiencies, letting both consumers and merchants avoid having to convert back and forth between crypto and traditional to make purchases.”

The announcement noted that it is looking for crypto assets that offer security and reliability so stablecoins are the ones that are able to hold their value to the US dollar for example and they can be easily used for payments. According to Mastercard, the criteria to integrate crypto payments comes to consumer protection, the regulatory compliance measures like KYC which are needed to use crypto rather than to merely invest it. Since it is a payments platform, it is designed to take a percentage of every transaction. Mastercard showed interest in the past in stablecoins. It even launched a platform for central banks to test their own CBDCs.

All eyes were set on BTC this week as the world’s biggest cryptocurrency reached an all-time high after Tesla purchased $1.5 billion in BTC. The use of stablecoins like Tether and USDC surged as well with the retail and institutional investors ramping up the holdings and prepare to move the funds.