Visa integrates USDC, payment giants are embracing cryptocurrencies
Produced | Odaily
Editor | Mandy
Produced | Odaily
to reportto reportAccording to the statement, the payment giant Visa will reach a cooperation with Circle to integrate its payment network with up to 60 million merchants and the stable currency USDC led by the latter.
Although Visa itself will not directly host USDC, the two parties will work together at this stage to help selected Visa credit card issuers integrate USDC into their platform (the platform of the card issuer) to support USDC payments. Previously, Visa has signed contracts with 25 encrypted asset service providers including Fold and Cred, and these companies can now try to integrate USDC.
At the same time, Circle will also join Visa's "Fast Track Program" (Fast Track Program), after graduation (possibly a year later),Visa will issue a new credit card that will allow businesses to send or receive USDC directly using the card.
Note: "Fast Track Program" means that Visa selects outstanding innovative companies from around the world, and member companies are eligible to directly connect with the resources provided by Visa's global payment network, including issuing co-branded Visa cards, and jointly providing global users with various innovations products and financial services.
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Payment giants all in
It seems that payment giants embrace cryptocurrency has become a new trend.
In late October, another payment giant, PayPal, announced that it would allow users to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using the company's online wallet. The company also said in a statement that beginning in early 2021, PayPal users will also be able to use cryptocurrencies to shop at 26 million merchants on its network.
Square, the payment company founded by Jack Dorsey, a solid cryptocurrency evangelist and Twitter CEO, has made a lot of money in bitcoin-related businesses-Square sold $1.63 billion in bitcoin through the Cash App in the third quarter , with a gross profit of $32 million. According to a JP Morgan Chase report disclosed by former Credit Suisse banker Mira Christanto, JPMorgan Chase believes that the market driving force for the Q3 Bitcoin price increase mainly comes from retail investors, and retail investors who use Square to invest in Bitcoin are in the process of this round of price increases. The role played by them is even greater than that of institutional investors such as Grayscale and other trust funds.
In contrast, Visa, despite being relatively "reserved" for a long time, the company actually has a long-term layout in the field of cryptocurrency.
Last year, Visa completed its first investment in the cryptocurrency field, co-leading with Blockchain Capital the $40 million Series B financing of Anchorage, a cryptocurrency custody service provider. Fortune reported that Visa contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in this round of financing. Ten thousand U.S. dollars.
In the Facebook-led cryptocurrency project Libra (now called Diem), Visa was also a founding member of the Libra Association, but eventually chose to withdraw due to regulatory pressure. However, Visa CEO Alfred F. Kelly later stated that he was open to returning to Libra.
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USDC's ambition
Using one word to describe USDC's position in the stablecoin market, "the second child of ten thousand years" may not be more appropriate, but USDC is not willing to be inferior to others.
According to CoinGecko data, as of 00:30 on December 3, the total circulation of USDC has reached 2.97 billion US dollars. Although it far surpasses the next largest DAI (about 1 billion US dollars), it is still far away from USDT's 19.4 billion US dollars .
Since the development of the currency circle, USDT can be said to have exerted its first-mover advantage to the fullest. Even though latecomers continue to criticize USDT on the regulatory level and mortgage rate issues, the result in exchange is that USDT’s leading position is expanding day by day.
Obviously, USDC needs to choose a new starting point.
Last year, Circle first sold its cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex; only two months later, Circle announced that it had sold its over-the-counter (OTC) business to Kraken; in April this year, Circle sold its retail digital asset business Circle Invest sold to Voyager. When officially announcing the sale of the OTC business, Circle published two articles in a short period of time to explain the reasons for its streamlined business,one articleIntroduced the advantages of USDC,another articleIt pointed out that Circle will focus on USDC-related businesses in the future.
Circle co-CEO Jeremy Allaire said at the time: “The first step in adopting USDC is really to focus on the payment business, which is to provide a seamless transaction experience for businesses that want to be able to easily accept and settle transactions using stablecoins.”
Jeremy Allaire did not break his promise. Circle first launched the stable currency business API and USDC enterprise account in March this year to allow more enterprises to accept USDC as a payment method. Up to now, Circle has opened about 1,000 enterprise accounts; since then, Circle It also announced that it will issue corresponding versions of USDC on faster public chains such as Stellar, Solana, and Algorand; in August, Circle announced the launch of USDC 2.0, introducing the concept of "transaction without gas".
At the end of July, Circle had reached a strategic cooperation with Genesis, and Genesis parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) also announced that it will strategically invest $25 million in Circle. The main purpose of this investment is also to promote the global adoption of USDC.
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In any case, Visa's announcement of integrating USDC will be a milestone event in the history of cryptocurrency development. From Satoshi Nakamoto's digital cash, to Ripple's gradual silence, and then to Libra's makeover, the cryptocurrency payment dream has experienced many ups and downs. This time, will the dream come true?
