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Ever wanted to use your cryptocurrencies for more than speculation and buying NFTs? Soon, you’ll be able to buy things with a credit card in 90 million stores worldwide. Mastercard and BINANCE have introduced a Binance Card enabling customers to purchase real, physical items using the digital currencies they hold in their crypto wallets.
- Mastercard and Binance will start offering customers the opportunity to pay for items with their Bitcoin and BNB, using a Binance Card. The plan is to roll out this offer to include 90 million stores worldwide.
- A prepaid card, that bridges crypto and fiat currencies, is currently on trial in Argentina. From here, Mastercard and Binance plan to extend out to the rest of the world.
Mastercard to partner with Binance for crypto mass adoption
Mastercard and Binance have teamed up to make purchases with cryptocurrencies possible at 90 million stores worldwide.
The news was (re)announced yesterday, 23rd August, and had plenty of people on the Web3 community talking. The main conversation revolved around mass adoption and how this could be the beginning of the mainstream accepting cryptocurrency as a viable alternative to fiat currency.
Although this is big news, Mastercard isn’t the first company to introduce cryptocurrency as a valid form of in-store payment. Gucci began accepting ApeCoin, Ether, Wrapped Bitcoin, Shiba Inu, USDC, GUSD and more in May of this year.
Mastercard and Binance have not yet set a date for when the roll-out will begin. And it seems fair to assume that introducing crypto payments to 90 million stores worldwide won’t be an overnight job. But a commitment like this from a company like Mastercard will surely help people to start seeing Web3 technology as an opportunity, and not a risk.
As Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach asked in a LinkedIn post announcing the partnership, ‘What could the blockchain industry look like in five years?’
Prepaid cards already being trailed in Argentina
This isn’t the first we’ve heard from Mastercard and Binance about this new initiative. The credit company made an announcement earlier this month that they’re launching this new initiative in Argentina, presumably as a test run.
Argentina is well-known in crypto circles for its strong adoption of Bitcoin, perhaps due to the country’s high rates of inflation. So it’s no surprise that Mastercard and Binance have chosen the Latin American country as the proving ground for its new joint initiative.
The Binance Card, as it’s known, is ‘part of the company’s ongoing efforts towards furthering global cryptocurrency adoption in a tangible manner.’ Anyone with a valid national ID can pay bills and make purchases with the card, using their Bitcoin and BNB holdings.
If all goes well, the two companies plan to expand their offering to more customers. It’s likely that countries with high cryptocurrency adoption rates – Vietnam, El Salvador, USA – could be the first in line for the Binance Card.
What is Binance and what is their token?
Binance is a Chinese company that has two blockchains, its own exchange and its own cryptocurrency. The blockchains are called BNB Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain; together, they are the BNB Chain. The exchange is simply called Binance and the ecosystem’s token is BNB, which stands for Build and Build.
In February 2022, Binance restructured the way its ecosystem works. People use the BNB Beacon Chain to send and receive BNB and other digital assets. People can also send BNB over the BNB Smart Chain, but it’s compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). What Binance has done is create interoperability with other chains.
To get an idea of what Binance offers as a company and what platforms you can find on its blockchain, visit DappRadar’s Rankings for Binance dapps. You’ll find Games, DeFi, Exchanges, and loads more there.
