On Wednesday, Payments company Visa announced it was pushing further into crypto by using Circle’s USDC on Solana to process payments. The firm also revealed its collaboration with merchant acquirers Nuvei and Worldpay, aimed at allowing them to settle with the USDC stablecoin rather than receiving fiat.
In reaction to the news, SOL rose 4% to $20.4. However, the token has given away the gains as of this writing to trade at $19.87, according to data from CoinGecko. USDC, on the other hand, did not record any inflows after the development. Nonetheless, the stablecoin remains the sixth-biggest crypto asset with a market cap of $26.08 billion.
For starters, a stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency that is pegged to a stable asset. In USDC’s case, the coin is pegged to USD, and its issuer Circle holds dollar reserves to back all the circulating tokens.
Stablecoins play a key role in the crypto market as they shield traders and investors from high price volatility. They also facilitate quicker transactions.
Cuy Sheffield, the Visa Head of Crypto, says by leveraging the USDC stablecoin and the Solana blockchain, the payments company will be able to enhance the speeds of cross-border payments. He also reveals that Visa is working with digital trading platform Crypto.com to use the Ethereum blockchain to process cross-border payments using the exchange’s Visa cards.
Visa’s Crypto Journey
Previously, Visa partnered with fallen crypto exchange FTX to launch crypto debit cards in more than forty countries. However, this plan never materialized as the trading platform filed for bankruptcy last November.
When its partner FTX was declared bankrupt, Visa appeared to have abandoned its crypto ambitions until April this year when it published a job vacancy in its crypto department. The company was looking to hire a Web3 software developer.
In August, Visa launched an experimental project on the Ethereum network to let users pay gas fees with debit/credit cards.
Now, the payment processor is looking to use Solana to facilitate fast transactions. Solana is one of the biggest decentralized blockchains. Like Ethereum, it allows developers to build dApps (decentralized apps).
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