Visa backs Bitcoin accessibility

Future. Visa is entering the cryptocurrency market, striking deals with top crypto platforms to help you actually spend your crypto. Ironically, the traditional access that Visa provides may be an accelerant to wider digital payment adoption.

Crypto credit
Your Visa card can now connect to your Bitcoin wallet instead of your checking account.

• 54 crypto companies (including Coinbase, Bitpanda, and Zap) have partnered with Visa to allow payments on its financial network.
• Visa’s FastTrack program has led the charge to bring fintech companies into Visa’s overall platform.
• Additionally, Visa is creating crypto-focused programs to attract customers, including a rewards credit card in partnership with BlockFi and a debit card with crypto firm FTX.

Visa’s game plan is already starting to pay off. In the first half of this year alone, Visa has facilitated over $1 billion in debit-backed crypto transactions.

Traditional in the front, revolutionary in the back
Visa’s Head of Crypto, Cuy Sheffield, explained that “as these crypto platforms grow, as consumers want to gain access to the liquidity that they have held in these assets, issuing a Visa card could become a bridge that unlocks that value and enables it to be spent at any merchant that accepts Visa.”

With Gen Zs and Millennials adopting crypto at an increasing rate, Visa is expecting that its venture into the market is only just beginning. A CNBC survey found that half of Millennial millionaires have 25% of their wealth invested in crypto.