Mastercard Crypto Credential Goes Live, Offers P2P Transactions and Innovative Wallet System

Crypto offers a flexible and fast way to move funds around, be it for payments or to send money overseas to loved ones.

Related: Pomp: Wall Street and US Politicians Now Fully Embrace Bitcoin and Crypto

But there is one thing that causes confusion, especially to new users: the wallet addresses. They are usually a long string of letters and numbers, impossible to remember.

However, they serve an important purpose as unique identifiers – they’re sort of like virtual locations to which your Bitcoin or Solana is sent. Exchange Bitso describes crypto addresses as “your email address, but in the crypto ecosystem” – which is a helpful way to put it.

Because of the uniqueness of these letters and numbers – each wallet has its very own combination – mixing up just one letter or number could cause the loss of all funds you send.

Mastercard Crypto Credential Verifies User Identities

Enter Mastercard, who have come up with a novel idea. They let you use a unique username instead of confusing string that has no apparent meaning to users. Mastercard Crypto Credential aliases allow users at exchanges to send and receive crypto without needing the counterparty’s actual address.

Users in Latin America and Europe are the first to test the new feature in a pilot – at Spanish Exchange Bit2Me, Liechtenstein-based Lirium and Brazilian Mercado Bitcoin.

Mastercard wrote in a press release that “P2P transaction is the first of many possible use cases” adding that NFTs and ticketing are potential future use cases.

Initiative To Drive Adoption as Mastercard Deepens Ties with Industry

Walter Pimenta, the executive vice president of Product and Engineering, Latin America and the Caribbean at Mastercard, said the trial would drive adoption of crypto assets worldwide:

As interest in blockchain and digital assets continues to surge in Latin America and around the world, it is essential to keep delivering trusted and verifiable interactions across public blockchain networks.

Walter Pimenta, Mastercard

This is not the payments giant’s first foray into the crypto field. In October 2023 Mastercard and the Reserve Bank of Australia successfully ended a pilot project around tokenisation of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Mastercard also partnered with layer-1 blockchain Aptos to explore the DeFi space and “on-chain identity and verification tool for payments, ticketing, and more” as part of the Crypto Credential initiative.

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