Mastercard, the American payment giant, announces new plans on July 20 for its cryptocurrency payment cards. The company wants to make payments with these crypto cards easier, especially when converting to fiat currency. Mastercard announces that it will partner with Circle, issuer of the USDC stablecoin:
Mastercard adopts #USDC and taps @circlepay for new initiative to settle transactions between card issuers and Mastercard itself. Expanding inter-operability between existing payment networks and USDC is happening. https://t.co/el3keBYOym
– Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) July 20, 2021
With the help of Circle, Mastercard mainly wants to make it easier for merchants, who accept payments with Mastercard, to transfer the crypto to fiat currency. Mastercard will also partner with Paxos Trust Company, Evolve Bank & Trust, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, Uphold, BitPay, Apto Payments, i2c Inc. and Galileo Financial Technologies.
“The Circle and Mastercard partnership enhances how USDC is expanding its role in payments and commerce on the Internet, while building a vital bridge between digital currency payment systems and major, established payment networks. The cryptocurrency market is maturing and we are encouraging this to reduce friction and create choice for people.”
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said. In related news, Circle will reveal how its USDC stablecoin is supported on July 20. About 61% consists of “cash and cash equivalents:”
Great news. USDC’s latest attestation report has a full breakdown of its investments and plenty of explanatory notes to help address further questions.
In terms of transparency, the other stablecoins now have some catching up to do.https://t.co/G2EM3wQBOn pic.twitter.com/d5kSNG32qd
– John Paul Koning (@jp_koning) July 20, 2021
The reason for this transparency is Circle’s plans to go public. The company is estimated to be worth about $4.5 billion. This year also saw Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, begin to offer more transparency after years of controversy. There are currently $27 billion USDC in circulation and a staggering $62 billion USDT, the two being by far the largest stablecoins on the market.
Circle reached the end of May no less than $440 million in an investment round, which was still a record amount at the time. Mastercard published a new study in May which showed that crypto adoption continues to increase and 40% of nearly 16,000 respondents said they plan to use crypto next year.
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