• To enable fiat NFT purchases with Mastercard, the financial giant is working with several NFT platforms.
    • In terms of crypto projects, the company’s latest initiative increases its rivalry with rivals Visa, PayPal, and Stripe.

    Mastercard has teamed up with various NFT industry participants to provide non-crypto purchases on NFTs. It’s also working with Ethereum layer-2 NFT network Immutable X and The Sandbox game. MoonPay, NFT platforms Candy Digital, Mintable, Spring, and Nifty Gateway are just some of the other crypto platforms.

    With the new service, it appears that Mastercard wants to make fiat NFT purchases feasible. NFT buyers will have a variety of payment choices; they won’t need to convert their money into cryptocurrency to utilize NFTs.

    Mastercard Conducts NFT Market Research Survey

    Mastercard recently published the findings of an NFT-related poll it conducted with 35,000 people from 40 countries. According to the survey, 45 percent of respondents had acquired an NFT or intended to do so. Aside from high NFT popularity, the survey also showed that half of these respondents would like flexible payment infrastructures. Besides crypto, NFT buyers would not mind paying in credit or debit cards.

    Aside from consumers, the project is also beneficial to NFT creators since it increases their client base.

    Mastercard Enables NFT Purchases without Crypto

    According to the announcement Mastercard made, the new service will be secured with similar measures to those guarding the firm’s payments system. This will likely do away with some of the uncertainty involved in NFT purchases, in addition to fraudulent activities.

    Recently, CNF reported that an NFT holder got conned out of his 29 Moonbird NFTs (worth $1.5 million). A scammer posing as a buyer requested that they move the negotiations to a private platform. There, he took possession of the NFTs but never made payment. Similar scams were reported with crypto Twitter alerting NFT enthusiasts of an alleged fraudster.

    Last year, the NFT industry generated over $25 billion in sales. Meanwhile, Mastercard has distributed a total of 2.9 billion cards all over the world. These figures show that the move by Mastercard could potentially contribute to further NFT adoption. Consequently, this could foster additional uptake of the metaverse and Web3.

    Venturing into Crypto and NFTs

    At the beginning of the year, Mastercard partnered with Coinbase for a similar payment system for the exchange’s native NFT marketplace. Even more, the company filed for 15 trademark applications about two months ago. It aims to use these to develop its brand in crypto markets and NFT platforms. Mastercard also works alongside lending platform Nexo to allow clients to spend their debt using Nexo cards.

    Visa, PayPal, and Stripe are some of Mastercard’s rivals in the payment industry. Like Mastercard, the three have also spread their wings to the crypto industry, increasing competition among themselves. Visa enables fiat transactions with USDC on Ethereum, PayPal supports crypto transactions while Stripe allows Twitter crypto payouts through Polygon.