Payment giant Visa has expanded the functionality of its settlement platform by adding support for Avalanche blockchains (native token $AVAX ) and Stellar (native token $XLM ), as well as new stablecoins — Global Dollar (USDG), PayPal USD (PYUSD), and EURC from Circle. This became possible thanks to cooperation with Paxos. The innovations allow individual Visa partners in a pilot program to conduct transactions in both dollars and euros through stablecoins.
Transaction volume: Visa has already conducted transactions with stablecoins amounting to over $200 million. The company notes that this is a significant step forward, but clear regulation is needed for widespread adoption.
Testing through Visa Direct: The company focuses on cross-border transfers, where traditional systems still face delays. For this, the Visa Direct service is used, which enables fast transfers using digital assets.
New platform: Visa is also working on the creation of the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform — a solution for banks that enables the issuance of stablecoins and their use in programmable financial products.
Expert assessments:
- Zahil Suresh, head of BitSave, noted that currently only 10-20% of transactions with stablecoins are used for payments, the rest are for trading and providing liquidity. He predicts that within a year, the share of payment operations will exceed 50% due to regulatory changes.
- Jagdish Pandya, founder of Blockon Ventures, compared the development of stablecoins to the beginnings of e-commerce. Although the daily transaction volume of Visa ($5-7 trillion) significantly exceeds current volumes in stablecoins ($20-30 billion), he expects rapid growth of digital assets in the next ten years.
