Global payment giant Mastercard has made a significant step towards bridging the gap between traditional financial institutions and Web 3 by announcing a first-of-its-kind Bitcoin debit card.
The Non-custodial Bitcoin debit card by Mastercard would allow its holders to make purchases directly with Bitcoin by making use of their debit cards like a regular everyday transaction.
The New development opens up Bitcoin holders to over 100 million existing merchants who support Mastercard for their everyday transactions.
The Web 3 debit card is a product of a partnership between Mastercard and Mercuyro, a crypto payment infrastructure provider.
The debit card is set to be rolled out to European users in its pilot stage.
The new Mastercard Web 3 Debit card is Euro-dominated and is designed with the concept of self-custody giving its users total control over their assets, unlike Centralized wallets where assets are partly in the custody of the providers.
Mastercard’s Web 3 integration Strategy
Mastercard’s partnership with Mercuyro isn’t the first time the global payment giants are partnering with a Web 3 firm to integrate crypto into their services.
Mastercard in August rolled out a crypto debit card in partnership with Metamask a leading self-custodial wallet firm in the crypto industry.
The payment giants through its principal member Immersive also had a similar collaboration with Xaman Wallets a self-custody wallet firm to roll out Self custodial Web 3 wallets.
- Immersive is a global web3 card-issuing platform that is backed by Mastercard and aligns with the principal company’s goal to promote self-custody adoption in the global finance industry.
- Besides Immersive and Mercuyro, Mastercard has similar partnerships with other crypto projects with the same goal of self-custody adoption in view. The global payment giants have partnered with Baanx Group, Monavate, and 1inch to name a few.
- Mastercard’s blockchain and digital asset lead Raj Dhamodharan explained in an Aug 14 blog post-Mastercard’s policy and motive behind its push for more self-custody in the payments industry.
- The blog post explained the complexities involved in using crypto for everyday transactions with centralized wallets which often involve the use of crypto exchanges.
‘The complexities of this process have been an obstacle for both buyers and sellers as it limits both choice and the purchasing power of stored crypto ’Raj explained
Mastercard believes self-custody web 3 debit cards solve this problem while integrating cryptocurrency into everyday global transactions.
Features and unique offer
The new Web 3 debit card by Mastercard and Mercuyro comes with some responsibility and commission for its prospective holders.
- The card charges a 1.6-euro ($1.8) issuance fee and a 1-euro ($1.1) monthly maintenance fee. The firm also charges an off-ramp 0.95% fee per transaction.
- However prospective holders of this card are set to enjoy some unique advantages which make the card a worthy investment.
- Users could expect some freedom, control, and simplicity in using their crypto assets for everyday transactions courtesy of the new debit card.
Reactions
The announcement by Mastercard drew mixed reactions from the global crypto audience as opinion seems to be divided on the real-world utility of the Web 3 Debit card.
Marco Lavanna a crypto enthusiast and founder pointed out that the proposed Web 3 card does not allow users to spend their BTC assets directly, but it rather converts their BTC assets to Fiat before proceeding with the transaction. The Card in question is a Euro-dominated card after all.
She also highlighted that the question of leveraging Mastercard’s global network comes into play after the conversion of the crypto assets to Fiat and not before hence there isn’t much of a revolutionary change here.
Other Crypto enthusiasts commenting on the development looked at the positive side of things regarding driving the adoption of cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin in the global marketplace.
William M a crypto enthusiast and Gemini employee argued that Bitcoin still has around 52m holders globally and is still early days for the asset with around 0.6% of the 8bn global population.
He believes such an initiative will help drive the adoption of Bitcoin and crypto assets to a global scale.
The new Web 3 card charges a €1.6 issuance fee, a €1 monthly maintenance fee, and 0.95% per transaction. The product is still in its pilot phase and will be available only for the European market.