Like many traditional financial giants, Visa is shifting to the blockchain and is set to roll out support for four crypto stablecoins across four unique blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, Stellar and Avalanche. Some analysts are saying that Visa’s exploration of digital assets for cross-border payments “could be a game changer”.
As reported by the Payments Journal:
“[This] marks the first adoption of a stablecoin by a major payment rail that already processes the lion’s share of international transactions…By treating stablecoins as equivalent to funds on deposit, buyers and sellers can enable instant payouts without leaving capital tied up across multiple currencies until needed.”
Interestingly, stablecoin settlement volumes surpassed Visa and Mastercard’s settlement volume combined last year, as noted by a crypto analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research.
“SWIFT and Mastercard’s blockchain solutions show us that these new rails are where it’s all headed—normalizing tokenized dollars for cross-border payments. But it will take some time to build it all out.”
Western Union adapts – chooses Solana
Visa is not the only payment provider to adapt to the times. Western Union is emerging from the Jurassic error as it plans to launch a dollar-backed stablecoin to allow its 100 million customers to send money internationally detached from local currency fluctuations and risks.
Their new stablecoin, USDPT, wil launch on the Solana blockchain, a high performance blockchain known for its speed, reliability, scalability and low transaction costs.
According to a press release from this legacy payments firm:
“Western Union will provide users with access to digital assets, and will enable the ability to send, receive, spend and hold USDPT through a seamless user experience supported by the company’s global compliance and risk capacities.”
Solana going mainstream
Meanwhile, the governance token of the Solana blockchain, SOL, has just become the third cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum to have an ETF traded in the United States. Two SOL ETFs began trading on the New York Stock Exchange today (Oct 29), seeing an inflow of just over US$80 million. The majority of this inflow went into Bitwise’s BSOL staking ETF, where investors earn about 7% yield.
“Solana is headed into the mainstream—and we think it’s just getting started,” Bitwise said as reported in media.
A Bitwise representative noted:
“Institutional investors love ETFs, and they love revenue. Therefore, institutional investors [will] love Solana ETFs.”
A managing partner at Multicoin Capital described the launch as “truly a watershed moment,” noting that “the substantial majority of capital in the world was legally not allowed to trade or own Solana until today.”
And now with two payment giants onboarding to the Solana blockchain, mainstream will not just be applied to the digital asset as an investment, but also as a payments rail.