Visa Wants To Work With Exchanges, Wallets On 'Digital Gold' Bitcoin (cryptonews.com) 11
Yesterday, in an earnings call, Visa CEO Alfred Kelly said that the firm wants to "work with wallets and exchanges" on handling crypto, and has called bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies "digital gold." Cryptocurrency News reports: During his talk, Kelly spent a significant amount of time discussing crypto. After differentiating a divide between "cryptocurrencies that represent new assets such as bitcoin" and "digital currencies and stablecoins" backed by fiat holdings, he stated: "We see all [cryptocurrencies] as digital gold. They are predominantly held as assets that are not used as a form of payment in a significant way at this point. Our strategy here is to work with wallets and exchanges to enable users to purchase these currencies using their Visa credentials or to cash out onto our Visa credential to make fiat purchase[s]."
The Visa chief appeared to be keen to leave the door open for all crypto projects that show promise, pledging that should "a specific digital currency become a recognized means of exchange, there's no reason why we cannot add it to our network, which already supports over 160 currencies." And Kelly appeared ready to court the custom of stablecoin issuers -- as well as digital currency-issuing central banks. He said: "For [...] stablecoins and central bank digital currencies, these are an emerging payments innovation that could have the potential to be used for global commerce, much like any other fiat currency. We think of digital currencies running on public blockchains as additional networks [...] we see them as part of our network of networks strategy. [...] We are the clear leader in this space."
The Visa chief appeared to be keen to leave the door open for all crypto projects that show promise, pledging that should "a specific digital currency become a recognized means of exchange, there's no reason why we cannot add it to our network, which already supports over 160 currencies." And Kelly appeared ready to court the custom of stablecoin issuers -- as well as digital currency-issuing central banks. He said: "For [...] stablecoins and central bank digital currencies, these are an emerging payments innovation that could have the potential to be used for global commerce, much like any other fiat currency. We think of digital currencies running on public blockchains as additional networks [...] we see them as part of our network of networks strategy. [...] We are the clear leader in this space."
Gold? Yeah right (Score:3, Insightful)
Gold has "utility value" in electronics, plus it's pretty/shiny and expensive to mine/produce. People value pretty/shiny things that aren't common.
Fiat currency is useful for paying taxes and paying off debts. In a stable/non-hyperinflationary environment it's also good for what money is good for: replacing barter and being a store of value.
Stable-coin is as good as what backs it.
Bitcoin etc.? For the most part you can't use it to pay taxes and debts, it's not pretty/shiny, it has no utilitarian value, and it's not exactly stable against things we need to buy every day, like groceries. I will grant you that it's "expensive to mine" but other than that, what's it got to offer besides "being independent of government"? Where I live, gold and silver are "independent of government."
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It's a pretty apt comparison actually. Gold does have utility value, but its shiny value is much, much greater than that. It's hard to mine, like bitcoin, so the supply is limited. Both gold and bitcoin are highly volatile, dominated by speculation, difficult to actually use as a currency and shitty stores of value although proponents insist otherwise.
Fiat lol? (Score:4, Insightful)
Backed by fiat
lol, backed by paper, ink, and a promise.
Who would trust Visa? (Score:2)
Visa/MC arbitrarily decided not to fund adult entertainment companies any longer, so why would anyone trust a digital currency they had to offer when obviously it would be shut down or invalidated if Visa decided they didn't like you?
DOA.
Concerned about the decentralized competition? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lightning hasn't reached critical mass so he probably wants to make sure Visa has a chance at being the paymetns rail rather than a decentralized layer like lightning which is the rather more obvious choice.