Mastercard announces support for crypto
Mastercard (NYSE:MA) announces plans to directly offer support for select cryptocurrencies on their network. This comes weeks after Visa announces a similar acceptance of the ever-growing space, with market caps as high as $600 bn USD for BTC, and $1.5 trillion for all 8 477 coins in circulation.
The credit card giant explains:
Our philosophy on cryptocurrencies is straightforward: It’s about choice. Mastercard isn’t here to recommend you start using cryptocurrencies. But we are here to enable customers, merchants and businesses to move digital value – traditional or crypto – however they want. It should be your choice, it’s your money.
It is unclear about which coins will be supported, but the most likely outcome is a surge in users as the amount of wallets grow. A press-release in 2019 stated that privacy, consumer protection, fairness to all merchants and users - as well as regulatory compliance will be the criteria by which coins are selected.
Nonetheless, we are excited for the change.
At the end of 2020, there were 63 million wallet users on blockchain.com, a leading crypto wallet platform - compared with 967 billion mastercard users internationally. As many cryptocurrencies are deflationary by nature, we may see a continuation of the bull-market and exuberance that has been persisting for the last 11 months. To learn more, see Wikipedia: The Economics of Bitcoin or listen to the below epsiodes:
Methodical Millions
Episode 19 - Cash and Cryptocurrency
Episode 41 - The Ceiling of Money
Episode 47 - Etherium and Dogecoin
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