Mastercard to Implement Payments for NFT and Web3 Projects

Payments giant Mastercard has announced it is working to bring direct payment support for a number of NFT and Web3 platforms with its cards. According to the company, this will enable more customers to enter the industry as the barrier to acquiring such digital goods is lowered via more flexible payment products.

Traditional payments companies are starting to embrace cryptocurrencies and include them as options in their business strategies. Mastercard, one of the biggest payments companies in the world, has announced it is working with a number of companies in the NFT and Web3 fields to enable customers to pay with Mastercard technology for their products.

According to a PR statement, the company is working directly with Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway, and Web3 infrastructure provider Moonpay, to allow customers to use their Mastercard cards to pay for digital goods provided by these platforms. Mastercard estimates that the above companies constitute a large swathe of the NFT space, which generated over $25 billion last year in sales.

This move will enable any holder of a Mastercard card — the announcement notes there are 2.9 billion worldwide — to enter the sector using Mastercard products, sidestepping the crypto conversion phase.

The objective of the company is to make payments easier for potential buyers of these products, which might be encumbered by the barriers that the crypto space can present. According to Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president for digital assets for Mastercard:

Buying digital goods should be as simple as buying a T-shirt or coffee pods on an e-commerce site. You can make your purchase with one click — that’s it.

For some, this is a logical step forward for Mastercard, which has already worked with Coinbase to allow customers of the cryptocurrency exchange to purchase NFTs with their cards on its marketplace.

Also, the company stated that payments made with debit and credit cards on these online marketplaces will enjoy the “full suite of capabilities” that the company gives to payments realized in retail stores, protecting consumers in case of fraud. Recently, Mastercard also partnered with Edge to launch a card that does not collect KYC information from its users.

What do you think about the implementation of Mastercard payments by several NFT and Web3 projects? Tell us in the comments section below.