Visa reports a surge in cryptocurrency payments. In 2021, the company’s customers spent $ 1 billion on digital money.
More and more people pay for goods and services with cryptocurrencies. This is reported by the payment service provider Visa. According to this, customers spent more than one billion US dollars in the form of Bitcoin or Ethereum via the company’s cards linked to crypto platforms in the first half of 2021 alone.
In previous years, sales in the same period were only a fraction of the current amount, according to Visa. The company does not provide any specific figures in this context. Visa says it has partnerships with 50 crypto platforms, enabling its customers to pay with digital money at 70 million merchants around the world.
Visa finance chief Vasant Prabhu told CNBC that his company is putting a lot of effort into creating an ecosystem where customers can use cryptocurrencies like any other conventional currency. Users are very interested in such payment options.
Payments with cryptocurrencies remain problematic
According to the report, Prabhu admitted that it is still problematic to pay with cryptocurrencies in everyday life. The high volatility, in particular, makes it difficult to use digital money. However, he sees the responsibility for the use of currencies with the users. They themselves would have to ensure that they manage their crypto assets sensibly.
Visa Inc. assumes that the trend towards the use of cryptocurrencies will continue. According to Prabhu, the company observes a high trading volume on the various platforms for cyber money in its network and is therefore expanding its cooperations in this business area. The latest partner is the FTX crypto platform of billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.
Other partners include Coinbase, Circle and Blockfi, all of which enable their users to pay with cryptocurrencies from their wallets using Visa cards. Mastercard’s competition is also preparing for increasing demand for crypto payments. According to CNBC, the company will be launching a payment card in cooperation with the Gemini crypto exchange in the summer of 2021.
Growing acceptance, falling prices
The growing support for cryptocurrencies in the financial industry and society is currently contrasted by rather weak exchange rates. The value of Bitcoin, for example, is currently suffering massively from the tough measures taken by the Chinese government against Chinese mining farms.