Visa and Crypto a long standing partnership
Update 2/3/21 - VISA is piloting their API Suite known as Visa Crypto Services which will allow banks to offering Bitcoin services. First up bank is... the Digital Bank First Boulevard.
Let's jump in the time machine and go way back to the ancient times of 2015, joking. All kidding aside recall that Visa started way back in 1958.
- September 2015, Visa made an investment in Chain
- October 2016, Visa announced a preview of Visa B2B Connect in collaboration with Chain
Additionally in Oct. Visa filed a patent for blockchain-based transaction system in October 2016, whose details were disclosed by the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) - IBM and Visa collaborated in October 2018 where Visa integrated IBM's open source Hyperledger Fabric framework from the Linux Foundation with Visa’s core assets .
- Visa filed for yet another patent in November 2019. The patent relates to a “digital fiat currency.”
- February 2020, Coinbase was granted Visa principal membership
- Also in 2020 Visa along with the World Economic Forum (WEF) on a set of policy recommendations for central banks exploring the concept of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
- Dec 1 '20 BlockFi, partnered with Visa along with Evolve Bank and Deserve to release credit card rewards in bitcoin to U.S. residents (in states without restrictions) in spring 2021.
- Dec 3 '20 Visa announced that it will bring the USDC stablecoin to the 60 million merchants on its payments network via adding Circle to Fintech FastTrack partnership.
Summary - I would not count out Visa from modernizing to stay relevant in the push towards full adoption of Cryptocurrencies. Two US Patents applied for, strong partnership, quick time to market for Crypto reward cards. What's next? I will be watching!
