Kevin Helms
A student of Austrian economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects and the intersection of economics and cryptography.
Visa files trademark applications covering a range of cryptocurrency products, including crypto wallet – Featured Bitcoin News
Payments giant Visa has filed two trademark applications covering a wide range of cryptocurrency products and services, including its own crypto wallet. The filings also mention crypto transaction handling and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Visa’s new trademark applications
Visa has submitted two trademark applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Mike Kondoudis, a USPTO licensed trademark attorney, tweeted Thursday:
Visa has filed 2 trademark applications claiming plans for managing digital, virtual and cryptocurrency transactions, digital currency + cryptocurrency wallets, NFTs + virtual goods, offering virtual environments… and more.
Filed Oct. 22, the applications are serial numbers 97643605 and 97643607. Visa International Service Association, a subsidiary of Visa Inc., is listed as the owner of the trademarks.
An excerpt of one of the trademark applications reads: “online non-downloadable digital transaction management software; non-downloadable virtual goods; non-downloadable virtual goods, namely a collectible series of non-fungible tokens; online non-downloadable software for use as digital currency wallet and storage service software; online non-downloadable software for use as a cryptocurrency wallet.”
Visa has been active in the crypto space for several years. The company has partnered with more than 65 crypto firms, including exchanges and wallet service providers, to enable crypto payments at over 80 million merchants.
In January 2021, Visa CEO Alfred Kelly revealed the company’s plan to enable crypto trading on the network. Predicting crypto to become “extremely mainstream,” he said Visa is diving into crypto “in a very, very big way.” In December 2021, the payments giant launched crypto advisory services. In May 2020, Visa filed a patent application for a fiat-pegged cryptocurrency system using “a private permissioned distributed ledger platform”.
A growing number of companies have filed trademark applications related to crypto and metaverse to the USPTO. Last week, Paypal and Western Union filed trademark applications for a number of crypto services. Earlier this month, Formula 1 filed eight trademark applications for “F1” covering many crypto and metaverse products and services. Ford similarly filed 19 trademark applications last month. E-commerce giant Ebay filed two in June, Facebook owner Meta filed five in May, and Mastercard filed 15 related trademark applications in April.
Would you use Visa’s crypto wallet if it launches? Let us know in the comments section below.
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