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Blockchain.com has accepted Visa debit cards payment to enable users to spend from their crypto balances free of charge, with the opportunity to gain cryptocurrency rewards.

Per the announcement:

“Initially available to US residents, users can spend their crypto or cash within their Blockchain.com Wallet without fees and earn 1% back in crypto anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.”

Blockchain.com Visa Card seeks to make crypto usage easier, given that it leverages Marqeta’s latest card issuing platform and Visa’s payments network.

Peter Smith, the co-founder and CEO of Blockchain.com, pointed out:

“As one of the crypto industry’s oldest and most trusted platforms, we’re excited to roll out the natural next step to make crypto easy to use in the real world and accessible to as many people as possible.”

He added that the Blockchain.com Visa Card would play an instrumental role in shaping the future of mainstream finance.

Based on Marqeta’s notable Just-in-Time Funding feature, Blockchain.com users will have the chance to seamlessly transact in fiat from their available crypto balances.

This will be made possible because each Blockchain.com Visa card will be linked to an approved Blockchain.com Wallet account.

Simon Khalaf, Marqeta’s chief product officer, stated:

“Blockchain.com has built up a massive user base, and we’re proud that our platform can make it possible for their customers to spend against their cryptocurrency wallet at the point of sale, using the magic of Just-in-Time funding.”

With Marqeta’s 2022 State of Money Movement survey disclosing that 38% of US consumers are crypto owners, it highlighted the surging need for crypto usage in daily scenarios.

Cuy Sheffield, the head of crypto at Visa, noted:

“At Visa, we believe for crypto adoption to grow, it’s critical for it to be easily accepted everywhere. We’re excited to partner with leading crypto wallets and exchanges like Blockchain.com to unlock more ways consumers can use their crypto for everyday purchases.”

Meanwhile, Mastercard recently inked a deal with BitOasis to establish a series of crypto card programs aimed at boosting daily cryptocurrency usage in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region, Blockchain.News reported.

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Ethereum (ETH) has been witnessing an uptick in activities, which has prompted a price surge. The second-largest cryptocurrency was up by 16.31% in the last 24 hours to hit $3,379 during intraday trading, according to CoinMarketCap.

As the neck-to-neck battle between Bitcoin and Ethereum continues, the latter has emerged as the victor in terms of usage. Damian Sowers, the founder of Level Frames, acknowledged:

“ETH usage is now 54X BTC. Flippening is inevitable.”

The skyrocketing usage can be explained by the fact that Ethereum has more use cases than Bitcoin. For instance, ETH has surfaced as the backbone of various sectors like non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi), which have witnessed exponential growth in the crypto space.

For instance, the DeFi industry is a billion-dollar sector because it was recently valued at $81.85 billion.

Furthermore, Ethereum settled transactions worth $6.2 trillion in the last 12 months. Ryan Watkins, a researcher at Messari Crypto, explained:

“In the past 12 months, Ethereum settled $6.2 trillion in transactions. This figure is up 369% compared to 2020, and was powered by a strong Q3 where Ethereum settled $1.5 trillion.”

ETH 2.0 deposit contract is the largest Ethereum holder

According to data analytic firm IntoTheBlock:

“The Ethereum 2.0 staking contract has become the largest holder of ETH. There are now 7.84m ETH, meaning that the contract has been growing at a pace of 23,442 Ether per day, with a total 51,200 unique addresses depositing.”

The total value locked in ETH 2.0 recently hit an all-time high (ATH) as more investments continue to trickle.

Launched in December 2020, Ethereum 2.0 is seen as a stepping stone towards a proof-of-stake (POS) consensus mechanism from the current proof-of-work (POW) framework.

The POS algorithm allows the confirmation of blocks to be more energy-efficient and requires validators to stake Ether instead of solving a cryptographic puzzle. Therefore, scalability is expected to be improved through sharding.

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Tag: CRYPTO USAGE

Blockchain.com Accepts Visa Debit Cards for Crypto Payment

Ethereum Usage is Now 54 Times to Bitcoin as Ethereum 2.0 Becomes the Largest ETH Holder