In brief
- MoonPay and Mastercard will enable stablecoin payments across 150 million merchants.
- The deal follows Mastercard's recent partnerships with OKX, Nuvei, and Circle.
- Visa is also piloting stablecoin services in six Latin American countries.
Mastercard has inked another partnership with a crypto company to provide stablecoin-powered cards, enabling users and businesses to make and receive payments in stablecoins worldwide.
Working with MoonPay, the rollout will rely on infrastructure from Iron, a stablecoin payment firm acquired by MoonPay in March. Transactions will be automatically converted into fiat.
Stablecoins have become popular tools in crypto trading and payments for their price stability, as each is pegged to a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar.
Mastercard Jumps Into Stablecoin Trend With New Crypto Payment Offering
Mastercard will enable clients to execute transactions in stablecoins, its latest initiative in an expanding effort to offer crypto-related services, the payments giant announced Monday. New York-based Mastercard said that it had teamed up with crypto exchange OKX and payments processor Nuvei to create an end-to-end ecosystem, where clients can spend crypto via their cards and merchants can accept it. Mastercard Investing in Smart Contract Tech to Build on State-Backed Digital Currencies OKX and...
But regulatory clarity remains elusive in many jurisdictions.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidance last month indicating some stablecoins aren’t securities, but left questions unanswered about yield-bearing and algorithmic variants.
It also dropped an investigation into PayPal’s stablecoin at the end of April.
Despite the regulatory fog, card networks are doubling down on stablecoin rails, betting on their utility in remittances, creator economies, and cross-border commerce.
The latest announcement adds to Mastercard's expanding roster of crypto collaborations.
Mercuryo Launches Mastercard-Enabled Crypto Debit Card
Crypto payments firm Mercuryo has released a Mastercard debit card for crypto holders in Europe. The virtual payment method, called Spend, enables users to turn their crypto holdings into fiat to make purchases at more than 90 million merchants in the Mastercard network, Mercuryo said in a statement on Thursday. The digital card is issued by Polish fintech company Quicko. Spend aims to become a widely accepted payment method, leveraging Mercuryo’s competitive off-ramp fees and security, the co...
In April, the payments giant partnered with crypto exchange OKX and processor Nuvei on a similar project. OKX will launch a new crypto card, while Nuvei, in partnership with stablecoin issuer Circle, will provide merchant infrastructure.
Mastercard projects also one-up a recent initiative from its competitor Visa, which on May 1 announced a pilot program allowing customers in six Latin American countries to transact in stablecoins.
Visa’s rollout, which covers Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Chile, will let users pay with stablecoins from existing balances. It is expected to later expand to Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
Daily Debrief Newsletter
