Customers, merchants, and businesses will no longer need to convert cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies to transfer through the Mastercard network.

Mastercard Prepares to Let Cryptocurrencies Move Through its Network
Mastercard announced Wednesday that it will start "bringing crypto onto its network." In a blog post on the company's official website, Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President of Digital Asset and Blockchain, explained that "digital assets are becoming a more important part of the payments world." He noted that customers are using Mastercards to buy cryptocurrencies, especially during bitcoin's bull runs, elaborating:

"We are preparing right now for the future of crypto and payments, announcing that this year Mastercard will start supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on our network. This is a big change that will require a lot of work."

"We will be very thoughtful about which assets we support based on our principles for digital currencies," the executive emphasized, adding that the same standard applies to stablecoins. "We are here to enable customers, merchants and businesses to move digital value," he opined.

Dhamodharan pointed out that Mastercard is involved in a number of crypto projects, having teamed up with Wirex and Bitpay last year to create crypto cards that allow people to transact using their cryptocurrencies. The company then joined forces with crypto exchange LVL this year. "These relationships — with many more planned in the pipeline — build on our many years of crypto collaborations," he said.