Bitcoin On Visa Is A Real Possibility, CEO Al Kelly Says

Bitcoin on Visa is a feature that could soon come to life according to the CEO Al Kelly as we can see more today in our latest Bitcoin news.

The payments giant could add cryptocurrencies to its global network soon as well as other cryptocurrencies as Kelly said in an online appearance last week:

 “To the extent, a specific digital currency becomes a recognized means of exchange, there’s no reason why we cannot add it to our network, which already supports over 160 currencies today.”

Despite the words, however, Kelly is not convinced that the broader use case of crypto is clear yet. The payments giant said that while BTC is among the most widely used and known crypto assets, its function is similar to the “digital gold” and is not yet used as a form o payment in a significant way at this point. Cryptocurrency services are not only allowed for exchanges and wallet providers who receive fiat from customers and exchanges to crypto on the other end. This means that once a customer uses a “crypto card” at a retail point, the actual crypto doesn’t interact with the VISA network but the exchange sells an equivalent amount of crypto so Visa only processes the payment in fiat.

Kelly however said that this could soon change, saying that VISA could make the crypto market safer, more secure, and useful to even more customers across the globe:

 “Our strategy here is to work with wallets and exchanges to enable users to purchase these currencies using their Visa credentials or to cash out onto our Visa credential to make a fiat purchase at any of the 70 million merchants where Visa is accepted globally.”

Kelly also acknowledged that the rise of stablecoins and crypto which maintain a stable value are pegged 1:1 basis with fiat like the US dollar and says that these tokens are developed to use in global commerce. Bitcoin on Visa is a real chance as the company already supports more than 30 crypto platforms, wallets, and crypto cards. These include BlockFi. Fold, BitPanda and Crypto.com while reaching 50 million customers worldwide.

As previously reported, Kelly sees an industry split between Bitcoin and other types of digital coins which are predominantly held as assets and stablecoins which are fiat-backed coins. Visa thinks that the best action to take is to continue with the partnerships and to provide the users with a way to cash out their assets as desired by using their Visa credentials in more than 70 million merchants across the world.