Visa starts using cryptocurrency

Visa today announced that it allows the use of USD Coin cryptocurrency for payments in its payment network. The source called it “the latest sign of the growing adoption of digital currencies in the underlying financial industry.”

According to Visa, a pilot program has been launched in conjunction with the Crypto.com crypto platform, and the payment system plans to offer this option to more partners at the end of this year.

Typically, transactions are performed as follows: when a user pays with a Crypto.com card, the required amount in digital currency stored in the e-wallet linked to it must be converted into “traditional” currency. The wallet deposits this amount into a bank account, which connects to Visa for all transactions. This increases the cost and complexity of the calculations for the business. By using cryptocurrency in its payments, Visa eliminates the need to convert it into traditional money to complete a transaction.

Note that USD Coin (USDC) is a so-called “stable cryptocurrency”, the value of which is directly tied to the dollar.

At the same time, Visa’s decision immediately led to an increase in the value of the most famous cryptocurrency – Bitcoin, which rose in price by 4.5%, to about $ 58,000.