Mastercard to accept crypto payments

The world of cryptocurrency continues to evolve and grow, with new developments and partnerships emerging all the time. In the latest news, payments giant Mastercard has announced a partnership with Web3 payment protocol Immersve that will allow users to make direct crypto payments on digital, physical, and metaverse platforms.

This partnership comes at a time when digital asset adoption is on the rise. According to recent statistics, the number of people owning cryptocurrency has nearly tripled in the past two years, with more than 200 million people now holding some form of digital asset. Furthermore, the global market cap for cryptocurrencies has reached over $3 trillion, with Bitcoin alone accounting for nearly of that value.

The Mastercard-Immersve partnership will use decentralized protocols to settle real-time cryptocurrency transactions on outlets accepting Mastercard payments online. This means that users can use their existing Web3 wallets to make direct crypto payments without relying on a third party for collateral. The transaction will be settled using USDC tokens, a United States dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Circle, which will be converted to fiat and used to settle transactions on Mastercard’s network.

This development is significant because it paves the way for greater mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies and the Web3 ecosystem. As Immersve CEO Jerome Faury notes, Web3 wallets and decentralized finance protocols can integrate into Immersve’s APIs and smart contracts to transact anywhere Mastercard is accepted.

This is just the latest move by Mastercard to stay relevant in the crypto ecosystem, as the company has fostered numerous partnerships in this space over the years. For example, the company has partnered with crypto exchange Binance to launch a prepaid card in Latin America that allows real-time crypto-fiat conversions for 14 tokens in Brazil.

With the growing popularity of digital assets and the increasing number of use cases for cryptocurrencies, it’s clear that this is a trend that will only continue to grow in the coming years. As more partnerships like the one between Mastercard and Immersve emerge, we can expect to see even greater innovation and adoption in this space.