Visa to allow payment settlements using USD Coin crypto, Reuters

The company told Reuters it had launched the pilot program with payment and crypto platform Crypto.com and plans to offer the option to more partners later in 2021.

The USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin cryptocurrency whose value is pegged directly to the US dollar. Traditionally, if a customer chooses to use a Crypto.com Visa card to pay for a coffee, the digital currency held in a cryptocurrency wallet needs to be converted into traditional money. The cryptocurrency wallet will deposit traditional fiat currency in a bank account, to be wired to Visa at the end of the day to settle any transactions, adding cost and complexity for businesses.

However, for the current project, Visa will use the Ethereum blockchain to remove the need to convert digital coin into traditional money for the transaction to be settled. Visa has partnered with digital asset bank Anchorage and completed the first transaction in March 2021, when Crypto.com sent USDC to Visa's Ethereum address at Anchorage.