Harold Bosse, Vice President of new product development and innovation at MasterCard, revealed that corporations, investors, and executives are undeterred by the recent downturn in the crypto markets. He added that they remain upbeat about the long-term prospects of the crypto space.
MasterCard has already outlined its intention in the crypto space, offering crypto-backed credit services. The company has also registered several NFT and Metaverse trademarks.
Mass Adoption Will Happen
While stating that large and small corporations maintain a positive outlook on crypto, he also stated that mass adoption of digital assets and the underlying technology would happen sooner rather than later. At a webinar during Avalanche’s Powering Business with Blockchain series, Bosse stated that millions of users are sending digital assets around the world. He further stated,
“They are early adopters and new adopters, but we have switched toward mass markets, [and] that will be a very important aspect for financial institutions to move into the space.”
Few Challenges Still Exist
However, optimism aside, he also acknowledged that challenges needed to be overcome for corporations to enter the market freely. According to Bosse, a lot of this boiled down to a lack of understanding about crypto amongst the senior management, issues around scalability and its commercial rationale, scalability, cost, speed, and other regulatory concerns.
“No one will use digital assets on blockchains unless they’re absolutely certain this money is good money,”
Crypto markets have faced a significant slowdown in recent weeks, with the decimation of the UST stablecoin and LUNA. The recent events have also given rise to fresh regulatory concerns in the crypto industry, with analysts believing that this could be the beginning of a bear market.
“It has to be invisible. I keep saying this, and it makes me sound like a broken record, but it needs to take a backseat to users who don’t care – honestly, my mom doesn’t care if it is [centralized finance] or DeFi.”
Current Crypto Space Is Like The Early Internet
Bosse compared the current state of the crypto space with the early days of the internet and reflected on its potential to transform the lives of people, stating,
“Think about the advent of the internet; no one was thinking that Amazon could even be a concept — you need the internet for Amazon to work. We’re in the same situation: How do we transform the lives of people and go into demographics or groups of people who don’t really think about blockchain first but think about their business problems?”
MasterCard’s Growing Interest In The Crypto Space
Back in February, the payments giant had revealed plans to expand its consulting arm and begin offering dedicated services for crypto, ESG, and open banking. MasterCard cited changing consumer preferences, rapid digital transformations, and rapid geopolitical shifts as the reason behind its decision to offer new consulting services to its current crop of payment-focused services.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
