Visa, a key player in the payments industry, has announced its further expansion into the realm of cryptocurrencies, with a particular focus on utilizing the stablecoin USD Coin on the Solana blockchain for its initiatives.
The company announced its collaboration with two merchant payment companies to facilitate the transfer of millions of dollars in USDC, the sixth largest digital asset with a market capitalization of $26 billion.
According to Visa, it is one of the first major payments companies at scale to directly utilize Solana for live settlement payments between its clients.
“The Solana blockchain sees 400 millisecond block times, averages 400 transactions per second (TPS) and typically surges to more than 2K TPS1 across a variety of use cases during periods of peak demand.”
Visa disclosed that it is partnering with merchant acquirers Worldpay and Nuvei to enable them to settle transactions using USDC rather than traditional fiat currencies.
In financial terms, a ‘settlement’ refers to the process in which the issuing bank transfers funds from the cardholder’s account, typically facilitated through a payment gateway, to the bank responsible for receiving card payments on behalf of the merchant.
“By leveraging stablecoins like USDC and global blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum, we’re helping to improve the speed of cross-border settlement and providing a modern option for our clients to easily send or receive funds from Visa’s treasury,” said Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s Head of Crypto.
Visa’s application of USDC stablecoin for settlements began back in 2022 by collaborating with the cryptocurrency exchange, Crypto.com. This collaboration allowed Crypto.com to use Ethereum for settling cross-border payments involving Crypto.com Visa cards.
Visa also recently introduced an experimental solution built on the Ethereum platform which enables users to pay gas fees (transaction costs) using their credit or debit cards, making it more convenient for them to participate in Ethereum-based transactions.
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