Mastercard Seeks To Expand Crypto Card Tie-ups (reuters.com) 12
Mastercard will expand its cryptocurrency payment card programme by seeking more partnerships with crypto firms, the company's head of crypto and blockchain said, even as the sector comes under closer scrutiny from regulators and banks grow wary. From a report: Mastercard has already partnered with crypto exchanges including Binance, Nexo and Gemini to offer crypto-linked payment cards in some countries. The Binance cards allow users to make payments in traditional currencies, funded by their cryptocurrency holdings on the exchange. "We have dozens of partners around the world who offer crypto card programmes and they continue to expand," Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard's head of crypto and blockchain, told Reuters on Thursday.
"Providing access to crypto in a safe way is also part of our value proposition and we're continuing to do that." Banks have become wary of crypto clients after a number of big crypto firms collapsed last year, including the bankruptcy of major exchange FTX. Meanwhile, U.S. regulators are increasingly cracking down on what they say is a lack of compliance in the market.
"Providing access to crypto in a safe way is also part of our value proposition and we're continuing to do that." Banks have become wary of crypto clients after a number of big crypto firms collapsed last year, including the bankruptcy of major exchange FTX. Meanwhile, U.S. regulators are increasingly cracking down on what they say is a lack of compliance in the market.
Might as well get a cut (Score:2)
When the music stops and everyone is looking for a seat, why not collect %3 from the players?
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Why in the world are they buying into the scam?
Because, "officially", it's "not a scam". Just every well-known example is a scam. And it's possible to make money off of them so long as you can isolate yourself from the scam, and cash out daily to something less-scam-like.
Good timing (Score:2)
Also this is very much "do not want" for me. Way, way too much potential for money laundering. This has "layering" written all over it. One of the big reasons for the ransomware boom was crypto made it easy to take payments. Yeah, they're not really anonymous, but it's taking a long time for law enforcement to catch up, and when it comes to state actors (lots of Ransomeware is coming out of North Korea) they have the resources to keep it anonymous en
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for a nobody you have such a hardon for nabbing money launderers
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(hit reply before I was done) Why is your focus on crypto/laundering when there are multitudes of provable money laundering all over the place?
Look honey! (Score:1)
Mastercard is trying to screw itself and its customers!
Useless (Score:3)
One of the major selling points of crypto-based payment networks would be the ability to avoid nasty fees that scale with the transaction amount. This card seems like the worst of both worlds.
Big companies are late to the crypto scam (Score:4, Interesting)
I use Fidelity Brokerage for some of my investments in the stock market. Throughout most of the crypto craze, they didn't touch it. I thought, well, maybe they are the smart ones. It turns out that they were working on various crypto products, but only finished them after the crypto Ponzi scheme started its downward spiral. Now they are marketing the hell out of their crypto products.
I guess they still see some desperate souls clinging to hopes of making it big in Crypto, and want to collect fees from them. Still, there is potential for large collateral damage, when the shit really hits the fan.