VISA AND MASTERCARD’S STABLECOIN PUSH
Visa and Mastercard are both racing to bring stablecoins into everyday payments, now that U.S. lawmakers are fast-tracking the rules for the sector. Mastercard just rolled out a suite of features that let consumers spend and merchants receive stablecoins like USDC as easily as cash, thanks to a web of partnerships with crypto players including OKX, Nuvei and Circle.
Meanwhile, Visa has teamed up with Stripe-owned Bridge to launch stablecoin-linked Visa cards across six Latin American countries, enabling users to shop at any of Visa’s 150 million+ merchant locations using their stablecoin balances. Bridge handles the backend, converting crypto to local currency for merchants so the process feels just like a regular card transaction. The companies plan to expand this service to Europe, Africa and Asia in the coming months.