Mastercard, a leading payment giant plans to use card payments to expand access to the non-fungible token (NFT) market.
Raj Dhamodharan, an executive vice president of the company, disclosed in a blog post published on June 9 that it had worked with Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway, and MoonPay to facilitate NFT commerce.
“We’re working with these companies to make it possible for users to use their Mastercard cards to buy NFTs on one of their marketplaces or through their crypto services,” he said. “With 2.9 billion Mastercard cards in circulation around the world, this shift has the potential to have a significant influence on the NFT ecosystem.”
- Currently, acquiring an NFT from a marketplace like OpenSea entails depositing funds into a crypto wallet and paying in a token, such as Ethereum or Solana, but such is changing.
- Coinbase and Mastercard have already collaborated to allow cash payments on Mastercard’s freshly launched NFT platform. After purchasing a CryptoPunk late last year, Visa is also keeping a close eye on the NFT industry. Since January, MoonPay has also provided an NFT payment solution to its partners.
- According to Dhamodharan’s blog post, a recent Mastercard poll of more than 35,000 consumers in 40 countries indicated that 45 percent of respondents had purchased or were considering purchasing an NFT, and nearly half wanted additional payment option flexibility.
“Overall, these connections are intended to make crypto more accessible while also assisting the NFT ecosystem in continuing to expand, innovate, and attract new followers,” he stated.
