- Visa deployed its first smart contract on Ethereum Testnet with a payment channel accepting Ether and USDC.
- The payments giant developed a conceptual protocol that enables interoperability between CBDCs for payments.
- Visa's Universal Payments Channel (UPC) will support the exchange of CBDCs on various blockchains.
Visa is focused on cryptocurrency adoption and introduced a solution for payments using central bank digital currencies across blockchains through its concept of UPC.
Visa takes lead in enabling payments through central bank cryptocurrencies
Payments giant Visa has led the way in cryptocurrency adoption several times in 2021. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to work with local crypto companies and facilitate businesses accepting crypto payments.
The company is focused on combining reliable payment solutions with cryptocurrency payments while innovating in the industry. The American financial services firm has developed a protocol that shows how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) on different blockchain networks could be exchanged and used for payment.
Visa's concept of a "Universal Payments Channel" outlines the interconnection between different CBDCs and paves the way for future payments on the financial services giant.
Cuy Sheffield, Visa's head of crypto, states,
This is a much longer-term future thinking concept around a way that Visa could potentially help become a bridge between one digital currency on one blockchain and another digital currency on another blockchain.
Interestingly, the proposed base layer for Visa's UPC is Ethereum. Though regulation on cryptocurrencies is currently underway in most countries, centralized institutions worldwide have embraced the idea of CBDCs.
Visa is therefore creating a hub for adoption and use of CBDCs to promote the mainstream adoption of digital currencies. Cryptocurrency analysts are considering Visa's move key to Ethereum's institutional adoption.
Pseudonymous analyst @Pentosh1 reacted to Visa's announcement,
First Visa buys an NFT
Then they start building on $Eth
Sounds like institutional adoption
Slowly, then all at once pic.twitter.com/o738W1Xt8r
— Pentoshi Won’t Dm You. hates Dm’s. DM's are scams (@Pentosh1) September 30, 2021
