MasterCard says any merchant on its vast network can soon offer crypto services | Hacker News Reader

MasterCard says any merchant on its vast network can soon offer crypto services

cnbc.com

23 pointsnic_wilson5 comments

Wonder if this will be picked up by users here. Evidence of crypto adoption which was often lamented as lacking, seems to go unnoticed here a lot.

> Houston Pension Buys Crypto, an Asset ‘We Could Not Ignore’ (Bloomberg) [1]

> Fixed-income titan Pimco is starting to embrace cryptocurrencies, CIO says (cnbc.com) [2]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28945833 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28936897

If a payment card vendor is going to offer crypto services, how does it work if I want to buy a loaf of bread that is usually $5 USD? Does MasterCard then exchange $5 into $X of some crypto? And then how do I pay for that at a credit card terminal in crypto? What if the exchange of USD to $crypto changes in the time of the transaction?

I think there are a lot of issues to resolve for it to become adopted like an actual currency to buy/sell things. Right now the usage is more like a stock.

My question is similar to yours, do I have to wait there for X minutes for the transaction to confirm?

Settlement happens off-chain. Purchases using a crypto credit card through the MC and Visa network are instantaneous.

I imagine a vendor will be able to choose if they want to be paid in a given crypto asset or USD. If they choose USD and you purchase something from them in the crypto of your choice, Bakkt will exchange it using the exchange rate at the time of purchase. Crypto stablecoins (USDC, DAI, UST, etc.) are the easier to wrap your head around. They are pegged to the USD.

In the future non-USD denominated algorithmic stablecoins will become more important, such as RAI, FAI, etc. This will still take some time for mainstream services like MC and Visa to embrace.

Personally, I have been using a crypto Visa card for some time (Monolith) which is basically a debit card where you top up your card with the crypto of your choice (for me usually USDC or ETH) and and then use it like any other debit card. It's a pretty basic form of adoption since the vendor has no idea that you're using crypto.

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