We’re entering a proper dystopian future, and sooner than you’d expect. Later this year, Mastercard plans to offer support for some cryptocurrencies. Which essentially means you’ll be able to pay for your boerewors ‘n buns at Checkers with Bitcoin, maybe Ethereum and probably DogeCoin.
The current announcement follows Elon Musk’s revelation that Tesla will begin accepting Bitcoin as payment. Of course, Musk/Tesla revealed it had purchased US$1.5 billion in bitcoin before the announcement.
BTC Mastercard payments
South Africans have seen an increase in crypto-ATMs across the country, which allows those fortunate enough to own some crypto the ability to conduct transactions in bitcoin. The announcement by Mastercard, however, will increase possibilities for shoppers across a variety of retailers. It’s worth noting that Mastercard does offer cards that offer crypto payments, but these don’t go through its network
Obviously, it won’t support all cryptocurrencies available, simply because there are so many — the financial institute mentioned that most of those still need to improve their compliance before being accepted into its network.
We’ll have to wait and see what Mastercard decides when it comes to compatible crypto and how integration with existing services will work. We can imagine that retailers would need to accept crypto as payment before you can go around swiping your Bitcoin-based credit card all over the place, though.
Source: TechCentral