Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high on 16 December 2020, when it went all above USD 20,000.
According to Yahoo Finance, the surge has mostly been attributed to the institutional investment from Wall Street firms, and public buy-in from big consumer-facing payment such as PayPal, Square, and potentially Visa. PayPal will add Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to PayPal and Venmo in 2021, while Square added Bitcoin to its Cash App in 2018, and in 2020 bought USD 50 million worth of Bitcoin for the company’s balance sheet.
Still, Visa’s crypto steps during 2020 have likely gone less noticed, the online publication adds. And this might be attributed to its partnerships, as opposed to the outright solo initiatives from PayPal and Square. These partnerships include names and product offerings such as Coinbase, a large US-based crypto exchange, Binance, a large non-US crypto exchange, Fold, a Bitcoin rewards app, BlockFi, an exchange that offers interest on customers’ crypto holdings, Circle’s USDC stablecoin (a cryptocurrency pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar).
Important to note that not all Visa-branded cards are launched through a direct partnership with Visa since some go through an issuing partner. But all of them require an explicit approval from Visa.
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