Visa’s director of crypto disclosed that the payments giant has teamed up with roughly 60 prominent crypto platforms “to launch card programs that make it easy for consumers to convert and spend digital currency at 80 million merchant locations worldwide.” “We’ve built up a lot of momentum in this space,” he said, “and we’ll continue to support the crypto ecosystem in several ways.”

Visa Is Dedicated to Growing the Crypto Ecosystem

Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, discussed the payments giant’s digital asset efforts in a Monday interview with NDTV.

“At Visa, the scale and scope of our work in crypto has grown dramatically,” he began. “The number of people cross-functionally at Visa working on crypto in some capacity is now in the hundreds — up from just a handful of employees. And we’ve more than doubled our number of partnerships with crypto platforms in the last 18 months — up to 60 partnerships today.” Sheffield expanded:

We’ve partnered with more than 60 of the leading crypto platforms, like FTX, Blockfi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, and Binance, to launch card programs that make it easy for consumers to convert and spend digital currency at 80 million merchant locations worldwide.

“Crypto-linked cards make it easy for consumers to convert and spend digital currencies, without requiring coffee shops, dry cleaners, or grocery stores to directly accept crypto at the checkout,” he continued. “All the conversions from crypto to fiat happen instantly, behind the scenes. In-store, online, it’s as easy as a standard Visa transaction.”

The executive was asked if Visa intends to launch a cryptocurrency consulting service in India. In early December, the company announced the launch of its crypto advisory services.

“Visa aims to provide our crypto advisory services to clients globally wherever there is interest, and currently, we offer services in markets where the regulations permit such transactions,” he replied.

The head of crypto at Visa stated:

At the end of the day, we want to serve as a bridge connecting the crypto ecosystem with our global network of 80 million merchant locations and more than 15,000 financial institutions.

“We’ve built a lot of momentum in this space, and we’ll continue to support the crypto ecosystem in several ways,” he concluded.