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Visa claims that in the first half of this year, spending on crypto-linked cards surpassed $1 billion.

  •  “We are trying a lot to establish an ecosystem that makes cryptocurrencies more useable and more like any other currency,” Visa CFO Vasant Prabhu.
  •  To allow its cards to access crypto wallets on those sites, the business has worked with Coinbase, Circle, and BlockFi.
  •  Visa claims that digital payments like cryptocurrencies have the potential to disrupt $18 trillion in yearly consumer purchasing that is currently done with cash and cheques.

On Wednesday, Visa announced that Consumers spent more than $1 billion in cryptocurrencies on goods and services using their crypto-linked cards around the world in the first six months of the year.

In the same times last year and this year, Visa estimated crypto spending at a fraction of that amount. The payments behemoth could not provide exact figures.

Visa CFO Vasant Prabhu told, "We're doing a lot to establish an ecosystem that makes crypto money more useable and more like any other cash." “People are looking into how they might utilise cryptocurrencies for activities that they would normally use traditional currency for.” “There are a lot of difficulties in terms of volatility, etc.,” he continued. However, it is the responsibility of cryptocurrency owners to maintain and track their assets.”

According to a recent research from Visa rival Mastercard, 93 percent of North American consumers intend to utilise bitcoin or other developing payment technology in the coming year, such as biometrics, contactless, or QR code systems. According to the report, 75% of millennials would utilise cryptocurrency if they had a better understanding of it.

“We see a lot of volume of individuals buying crypto currencies at these various regulated exchanges on our [network], and as far as we can see, that trend is continuing,” Prabhu said.

Mastercard will issue a card with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, which was co-founded by billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, this summer. Customers will be able to earn cryptocurrency as a reward with the card. Cardholders, on the other hand, will not be able to use the site to access their digital wallet.

The FTX cryptocurrency platform, established by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, was also accepted to Visa's Fintech Fast Track Program on Wednesday, with the goal of making bitcoin more feasible for consumer and business spending.

Current Visa partners include Circle, BlockFi, and Coinbase, which went public on the Nasdaq in April and allows cardholders to spend cryptocurrency from their wallet at more than 70 million businesses worldwide. Crypto-linked cards and other new payments like as biometrics and QR codes, according to Visa, have the potential to disrupt the $18 trillion spent annually on cash and cheques throughout the world.

Due to retail investor enthusiasm during the coronavirus pandemic as a store of value and inflation hedge, Bitcoin's market cap surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in February and achieved an all-time high near $65,000 per unit in April. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has dropped around 45 percent since then, and it just fell below $29,000, where it began the year.

Visa, according to Prahbu, has no immediate intentions to add cryptocurrencies to its balance sheet, as Tesla, MicroStrategy, and other corporations have lately done.

“At this time, we do not have any crypto currencies on our financial sheet. On our balance sheet, we keep the currencies we require to run our business. We have currencies in which we are paid or in which we pay others. The dollar, euro, and pound are the most common examples. So we have no plans to hold crypto money since that isn't how we get paid or how we pay people,” he explained.

On July 27, Visa will release its quarterly earnings report.