The global payments company had teased that it has plans to collaborate with Ethereum, and that it will explore development within the crypto space.
In a paper published Monday, Visa had announced its plans to dive into crypto for the long run – outlining how the company can potentially one day collaborate with the Ethereum network to provide automatic crypto payments.
The paper details how Ethereum users, with support from Visa, can improve how they do crypto transactions with methods such as scheduling auto-payments from self-custodial wallets.
Although such features are currently not yet available on the Ethereum mainnet, it can be once a proposal called “Account Abstraction” is accepted onto the mainnet. Account Abstraction allows Ethereum user accounts to function just like smart contracts, and can allow for pre-scheduled transaction functions.
At @Visa , we want to serve as a trusted bridge between the crypto ecosystem and our global network. Excited to share some update today, here is the 🧵 pic.twitter.com/OK1sWIaxY3
— Catherine Gu (@catgu_) December 19, 2022
Although such methods for automatic payments seem quite small, it does indicate Visa’s huge interest within the crypto space, and their plans to be a major player in the industry.
“We want to have an opportunity to actively contribute to technical developments happening in the crypto ecosystem,” Catherine Gu, Visa’s Head of CBDC and Protocols, said. “The best way to do that is learning by doing—actually getting deeper into Web3 infrastructures and blockchain protocols, areas I think are going to be really important for payments.”
At the moment, Gu’s team is researching what the blockchain and its technologies can do for the global payments industry, and how soon changes can happen. However, Gu says that it wouldn’t be any time soon.
“This technology is very nascent right now, but there could be something there down the road,” Gu said. “A lot of research needs to be done around fundamental aspects important for payments, like security and scalability.”
Blockchain development is precedented on the idea of progress to create a scalable and more secure network – the most prominent being Ethereum’s development roadmap. Although there’s many anticipated updates to the Ethereum network, the technology we currently have isn’t quite enough.
“This technology is very nascent right now, but there could be something there down the road,” Gu said. “A lot of research needs to be done around fundamental aspects important for payments, like security and scalability.”
Once blockchain technology reaches the level of scalability and security that can power large volumes of data and transactions, they have a chance of being used by major payment companies like Visa. While Visa isn’t in direct correspondence with Ethereum, the global payments giant is optimistic to see developments so the blockchain can increase its use cases.
“This technology is very nascent right now, but there could be something there down the road,” Gu said. “A lot of research needs to be done around fundamental aspects important for payments, like security and scalability.”
Visa had filed a trademark application in October for creating a crypto wallet and its own metaverse. Recently, Visa had dropped out of its partnership with FTX after the platform’s downfall, but still remains eager to participate in the crypto space.
Meanwhile, Visa’s competitor Mastercard had announced a collaboration with Paxos. The program creates a “bridge” between Paxos and banks which makes it easier for banks and other financial institutions to offer crypto trading products.
