According to business media Forbes reported on Wednesday, payment card giant Visa’s payment network covering 60 million merchants will support the USDC USD stablecoin based on Ethereum developed by Circle.
According to the report, although Visa itself will not keep any USDC, Circle will work with Visa to help Visa credit card issuers integrate USDC software into their platform to send and receive USDC payments, and companies will be able to cross-border to other companies supported by Visa Pay USDC, and use the Visa card payment after these funds are converted into the national currency.
According to comparison data, USDC currently has a market capitalization of US$2.9 billion, making it the second largest stablecoin, but there is still a big gap from the largest stablecoin USDT, which has a market value of US$19.5 billion.
In addition, Visa may also issue a credit card next year, allowing companies to send and receive USDC payments directly through the credit card.
Cuy Sheffield, Head of Encryption Business at Visa, said, “This will be the first corporate credit card that allows companies to use USDC balances. So we believe this will greatly increase the use of USDC for Circle’s commercial customers.”
Sheffield emphasized, “We still believe that Visa is a network that covers multiple networks. The blockchain network and stablecoins such as USDC are just an additional network. Therefore, we believe that Visa can provide important value to our customers and enable them to Use Visa and spend at our merchants.”
Prior to this cooperation, Visa had signed contracts with 25 cryptocurrency wallet providers, including Fold and Cred. Other cryptocurrency wallet providers such as BlockFi will be able to use USDC in the first quarter of 2021. According to a report from “Betwee” this week, BlockFi has partnered with Visa to launch Visa credit cards that support bitcoin rewards next year.
Visa estimates that 120 trillion U.S. dollars in payments are made through checks and instant wire transfers each year, and each payment can cost up to $50. Since USDC chose the Ethereum blockchain, the transaction can be completed within 20 seconds, and more importantly, it can be completed almost for free. Visa believes that a large number of its merchants can choose to use this almost instant alternative payment form.
Author Liang Che
