As Big Players Enter the Crypto and NFT Market, Will Visa Purchase More NFTs?

It is no secret that Visa is currently partnering with crypto exchangers and operators, in hopes to adapt seamlessly with the crypto market. Months back, Visa announced its partnership with Coinbase, Binance, Crypto.com and several exchanges.

Visa and the Crypto Market

One of Visa’s notable milestones is the Coinbase Card, a debit Visa card that Coinbase rolled out in the US. The Coinbase Card is a significant achievement for Visa as this shows the firm’s full adoption of crypto as a utility program. In addition, customers who use this Visa debit card get a 1% bounty in BTC or a 4% rebate in XLM rewards. Reports say that more reward options will be available in the future.

According to Visa, this milestone became a massive success—that in the first six months of 2021, Coinbase Card already exceeded “$1 billion worth of crypto on goods and services.” More so, as Visa partnered with Coinbase, Circle, and BlockFi, this enables the cards to enter crypto wallets on these platforms.

Visa and NFTs

On the other hand, Visa not only showed support for the crypto market but towards NFTs as well. Visa also recently steps into the metaverse.

To note, NFTs are unique digital assets created from blockchain technology. NFTs, to put it simply, are items whose sole digital ownership is only for its “owner”. These digital assets include but are not limited to airline mileage points, in-game items, collectables, and many others.

Additionally, NFTs are famous for their interoperability, tradeablity, liquidity, immutability, and provable scarcity. Presently, art, gaming, sports, metaverses, and other industries use NFTs. Truthfully, the NFT industry is becoming more profound. Big firms are joining the NFT craze right now.

According to reports, the NFT industry accumulated more than $1.5 billion in transactions for the first quarter of 2021, alone. With this, Visa initiated NFT adoption and took a plunge into this industry by purchasing its own NFT—CryptoPunk #7610.

To note, CryptoPunk is an NFT—a digital avatar that is rising in sales at the moment. The head of Crypto at Visa, Mr. Cuy Sheffield, actually believes that CryptoPunk is the “cultural icon for the crypto community” and sees NFTs as the “future of retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce.”

Sheffield also mentioned that purchasing NFT is their way of “learning”. He said that understanding the NFT infrastructure first, will allow them to help their clients and partners in participating in the metaverse as well.

He also mentioned that,

NFTs have the potential to become a powerful accelerator for the creator economy and lower the barrier to entry for individual creatives to earn a living through digital commerce. NFTs are starting to usher in a new form of social commerce that empowers both creators and collectors.

With this, Sheffield believes that NFTs can fuel all types of business effectively. Moreover, Visa noted NFTs as a  ‘promising medium for fan engagement’.

In the announcement, Visa explained how they are currently working on new concepts and partnerships for NFT. More so, these concepts aim to support NFT buyers, sellers, and creators. Visa is looking forward to sharing more of this in the “months ahead”, backing what Sheffield also said in the announcement, “This [NFT purchase] is just the beginning of our work in this space.”

Conclusion

The payment processing giant embraces the crypto and NFT market with great enthusiasm. Visa’s previous actions prove this much. Moreover, Visa continues to focus on digital assets and to commit to helping “make cryptocurrencies more safe, useful and applicable for payments.”

Furthermore, in Visa’s whitepaper, it says:

“Visa is laying the groundwork to enable adoption of NFTs and other assets in the future“.

So, to answer the question “Will NFTs go mainstream?” or “Will Visa purchase more NFTs?” the answer is quite obvious now. However, as Sheffield also stated,

Only time will tell. What’s certain is that curiosity, an open mind, and active experimentation are the best approach when new technologies and use cases come on the scene. It’s exciting to be working in this field at this exact moment in time.

Source: https://coinquora.com/as-big-players-enter-the-crypto-and-nft-market-will-visa-purchase-more-nfts/