Payment company Visa has said it is not slowing down on its cryptocurrency plans, despite news reports suggesting otherwise amid a brutal bear market.
The head of US company Crypto Cuy Sheffield said in a series of tweets on Tuesday that a Reuters the story claiming that both Visa and Mastercard were slowing down their crypto momentum was โinaccurateโ when it comes to Visa.
He added that โdespite the challenges and uncertainty in the crypto ecosystem,โ Visa believes that โfiat-backed digital currencies running on public blockchains have the potential to play an important role in the payments ecosystem.โ
Visa has been working with the crypto space for some time, but things have slowed down of late: In November, term its global credit card deals with failed crypto exchange FTX.
The company had announced plans to roll out cards in 40 new countries as part of a "long-term global partnership," but pulled the plug when the cryptocurrency company went bankrupt.
3/ Despite the challenges and uncertainty in the crypto ecosystem, our view has not changed that fiat-backed digital currencies running on public blockchains have the potential to play an important role in the payments ecosystem.
โ Cuy Sheffield (@cuysheffield) February 28, 2023
FTX went bankrupt in a highly publicized accident and is now under investigation for criminal mismanagement. Prosecutors allege the company mixed customer funds; his former boss Sam Bankman-Fried now faces 12 criminal charges.
visa too archived new trademark applications in October, hinting at potential plans for a crypto wallet and metaverse product. Crypto wallets, such as MetaMask or Phantom, are used to store digital assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum and make payments. Meanwhile, the metaverse refers to a shared virtual world online and has become a focal point for various crypto and fintech companies.
The collapse of the mega exchange FTX and the contagion that followed is forcing US lawmakers and regulators to come up with new ideas on how to regulate the space.
A Visa spokesperson said decipher: "The recent high-profile failures in the cryptocurrency sector are an important reminder that we have a long way to go before cryptocurrencies become part of mainstream financial payments and services."
The spokesperson added that Visa remains "focused on increasing our core competencies in the Web3 infrastructure layers and evaluating the blockchain protocols that drive cryptographic development."
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