There’s no denying it: being able to spend crypto with a regular Visa card is simplifying the adoption of digital currencies, so it’s not surprising that Circle‘s famous stablecoin wanted to partner with the Visa giant to integrate USDC.
What is surprising though is the official partnership with the financial giant, as crypto companies usually manage to create their own Visa-based debit card (see Binance, Eidoo, Crypto.com and others) and it is never a full-fledged partnership.
However, the concept seems almost the same, at least in some ways: Circle can create its own debit card to send and receive USDC.
Visa will not hold USDC
But what’s different is that Circle will also become part of the Fast Track program to work with the issuers of the various business cards in the circuit to integrate payments in USDC, which we remember is a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar-based on the Ethereum blockchain.
Based on these facts, however, Visa will not be taking any custody of USDC.
In addition, Circle will receive no less than $40 million from Visa as an investment in the project.
Visa’s Head of Crypto, Cuy Sheffield, told Forbes:
“This will be the first corporate card that will allow businesses to be able to spend a balance of USDC. And so we think that this will significantly increase the utility that USDC can have for Circle’s business clients. We continue to think of Visa as a network of networks. Blockchain networks and stablecoins, like USDC, are just additional networks. So we think that there’s a significant value that Visa can provide to our clients, enabling them to access them and enabling them to spend at our merchants.”
At any rate, it is worth noting that Circle is not the first crypto company to enter the Fast Track program, where there are also Fold, Cred and BlockFi.
