Visa will continue building out its cryptocurrency platform, though the company’s CEO Al Kelly has reservations about the wider crypto sector, CoinDesk reported Tuesday (March 8).
According to the report, Kelly has questions around the “ultimate utility” of crypto, asking, “What problem are we trying to solve?”
That refrain has been heard before in terms of crypto critiques, particularly in regards to crypto as a “solution in search of a problem,” the report noted.
Kelly said crypto could be useful in some situations where cash could be dangerous, though he wasn’t sure they had much application in the U.S., Canada or other such places. That said, he added that Visa will still be playing a role in the industry and it will fall on customers to decide whether crypto is something they want to use.
Kelly has also added that Visa is looking into facilitating purchases of crypto, making a utility for crypto through stablecoin providers, and making it so financial institutions and FinTechs can offer crypto access and custody.
CoinDesk noted that Visa users made $2.5 billion total in payments with crypto-connected cards — a big boost from the numbers in previous quarters.
PYMNTS reported that payment processors and merchants are seeing more customers who want to pay with digital currencies, particularly as crypto becomes more mainstream.
Read more: As Crypto’s Popularity Grows, Gateway Providers Help Merchants Accept it. Here’s a Closer Look
PYMNTS wrote that in 2021, 16% of Americans had already bought or received crypto, and 29% were planning to get into it eventually. That included 18%, or around 46 million, who plan to use it to pay for everything from groceries to travel.
While some of the early companies accepting payments in bitcoin included BitPay, CashApp and Coinbase, bigger companies like Visa, Mastercard and PayPal have more recently joined in the acceptance of the coins. For instance, there are now Visa and Mastercard debit cards that can help make crypto payments directly.
