Mastercard is increasing its efforts in the Blockchain Space

Global payments Mastercard announced on Friday its plan to establish an infrastructure to better verify blockchain transactions in partnership with four prominent industry names: Aptos Labs, Ava Labs, Polygon and Solana Foundation.

The bold move came amid growing crypto regulations.

The new offering, Mastercard Crypto Credential, aims to set verification standards and offer the necessary technology for various use cases across the sector.

In a blog post on the company’s website, Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s head of crypto and blockchain, explained the rationale behind the effort, saying they need a way to ensure interactions on public blockchain networks are reliable, compliant and verifiable to fully implement rules. and build scalable use cases.

Mastercard is moving further into Crypto

Mastercard also outlined the significant difference between authentication levels across crypto products, such as NFTs and crypto wallets, calling for the need to create a new offering.

The Mastercard Crypto Credential will provide simple aliases to help consumers more easily share wallet addresses and use metadata to define wallet attributes to ensure only intended transactions are completed.

CipherTrace, a crypto intelligence firm Mastercard acquired in 2021, will help verify addresses and support compliance with cross-border transaction regulations. Aptos Labs, Ava Labs, Polygon and Solana Foundation will help bring Mastercard’s new offering to application developers.

Six fintech companies were also added to Mastercard’s Start Path Digital Assets program, designed to give startups access to the payments giant’s channels and customers and technical collaboration.

Ramping up in Web3 innovation

Mastercard has long appeared in crypto, especially in Web3 and NFT. Earlier in 2022, the company announced its strategic partnership with Coinbase to enable NFT purchases on the Coinbase NFT marketplace with a Mastercard.

The payments giant has also advanced its venture into non-fungible tokens and developed online mechanisms through partnerships with several prominent NFT marketplaces, including Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway and web3 infrastructure provider MoonPay.

The goal of Mastercard, through these partnerships, is to raise its presence in the Web3 space and allow more users to buy NFTs directly from their payment cards instead of having to buy cryptocurrency first.

Blockchain technology remains the company’s focus, and Mastercard aims to use that technology to help solve today’s complex problems and build efficient systems.

Mastercard is one of many large payment companies that have expressed an interest in the sector. Over the past few years, many companies have begun exploring ways to integrate cryptocurrencies into their offerings as they see it as the next big thing in finance.

Massive future in payments

Payment card companies have announced a number of partnerships with crypto companies and established dedicated groups to explore the underlying technology.

However, recent turmoil in space forced a decline. The regulatory environment in the US created a significant barrier. Typically, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has repeatedly targeted the crypto industry since the beginning of this year.

Visa and Mastercard have announced their plans to delay the launch of new partnerships with crypto firms. This decision follows a period of instability in the crypto industry, with major players such as FTX and BlockFi seeking bankruptcy protection.

These events have led to investor anxiety and increased regulatory control over the sector.

In light of these circumstances, both Visa and Mastercard have decided to delay the introduction of specific crypto-related products and services until market conditions and the regulatory environment improve.

It’s a significant setback for the crypto industry, which has sought mainstream adoption from traditional financial institutions.

Despite the setbacks, the crypto industry remains optimistic about its long-term outlook.

As more investors recognize the value of decentralized systems and blockchain technology, the industry is expected to grow in the coming years. Mastercard is taking a proactive approach to ensure the industry’s long-term success and pave the way for mainstream adoption.