Altcoins, Banking, Blockchain, Blockchain Applications, CBDC, Cryptocurrency, Decentralised Finance (DeFi), Development, Enterprise, Ethereum, Industries, Payments

Visa will ‘actively contribute’ to web3 development

Ryan Daws

December 20, 2022

Visa refuses to become a dinosaur and will “actively contribute” to developing the web3 and crypto ecosystem.

Aside from maximalists, few experts believe that crypto poses an existential threat to fiat currencies. Legacy payment processors like Visa and Mastercard have increasingly been joining the web2-era disruptors like PayPal and Square in supporting the web3 and crypto ecosystem.

Greater public adoption of “crypto” will likely come through CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) that are more familiar to the average person while offering the benefits of digital ledger technologies including faster transactions, lower fees, and improved traceability.

Earlier this year, China’s CBDC project exceeded 360 million transactions with a total value of 100 billion yuan (£12.4bn). The Bank for International Settlements also declared its CBDC pilot a success.

A tweet thread by Catherine Gu, Director of CBDC and Protocols at Visa, suggests the company will further its contributions to advancing the industry:

At @Visa , we want to serve as a trusted bridge between the crypto ecosystem and our global network. Excited to share some update today, here is the 🧵 pic.twitter.com/OK1sWIaxY3
— Catherine Gu (@catgu_) December 19, 2022

Beyond acting as “a trusted bridge” between ecosystems, Visa also intends to actively contribute to crypto development:

We have been closely tracking the development of the crypto ecosystem and many new technologies and innovation that are evolving very rapidly. The best way to stay engaged and for us to actively contribute to the technical development in the crypto ecosystem is learning by doing
— Catherine Gu (@catgu_) December 19, 2022

And ultimately help to advance web3 and improve areas that are currently lacking, such as UX:

We’ll be sharing external research, engage with clients, partners and developers alike, and focus on real-world use cases for payments with great UX

So today we are sharing a technical piece on How to use Account Abstraction (AA) to setup Autopayments on a Self-Custodial Wallet.
— Catherine Gu (@catgu_) December 19, 2022

Ethereum, the largest smart contract platform, was specifically highlighted by Gu as one of the ecosystems that Visa may collaborate with.

AA is a concept that Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin detailed in 2015 and has since been integrated into layer-2 solutions like StarkWare:

Since @StarkWareLtd, a L2 network today already supports AA, we build out this autopayment application using StarkNet, with @argentHQ wallet. We deployed our smart contracts and tested the transaction on a private chain.
— Catherine Gu (@catgu_) December 19, 2022

Visa is said to be in regular communication with Ethereum’s core developers. The smart contract platform is currently rolling out Ethereum 2.0, a process expected to take several years to complete but should fix its notoriously high fees and slow transaction speeds.

Following the grim headlines that have shaken the industry over the past year, it’s good to see players of all shapes and sizes continuing to build the infrastructure that will power the next generation of the web.

Visa’s full ‘Auto Payments for Self-Custodial Wallets’ technical paper can be found here.

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About the Author

Ryan Daws

Senior Editor

Ryan Daws is a senior editor at TechForge Media with over a decade of experience in crafting compelling narratives and making complex topics accessible. His articles and interviews with industry leaders have earned him recognition as a key influencer by organisations like Onalytica. Under his leadership, publications have been praised by analyst firms such as Forrester for their excellence and performance. Connect with him on X (@gadget_ry), Bluesky (@gadgetry.bsky.social), and/or Mastodon (@gadgetry@techhub.social)