Mastercard has revealed its plans to allow any bank or merchant on its network to accept Bitcoin as payment, as well as to offer Bitcoin and Bitcoin rewards.
New reports stated that Mastercard is working together with Bakkt — a Bitcoin and crypto wallet provider — to offer Bitcoin custodial services for merchants that signed up.
There are currently thousands of banks and millions of merchants on Mastercard’s vast network. If all of them are able to send or receive payments via Bitcoin wallets, earn Bitcoin rewards through credit and debit cards, and hold loyalty programs where airline or hotel points could be converted into crypto, it could significantly increase the mainstream acceptance and accessibility of cryptocurrencies.
Bakkt CEO Gavin Michael said that the existing points could also be converted into Bitcoin at varying rates depending on the participating companies.
We want to offer all of our partners the ability to more easily add crypto services to whatever it is they’re doing.
Sherri Haymond, Executive Vice President of Digital Partnerships at Mastercard
Bitcoin services have been highly sought-after by the payment giant’s clients due to the global demand for Bitcoin products and institutional access, said Haymond.
