The credit card provider Mastercard will issue a crypto debit card denominated in euros. Users can pay with it anywhere – but still retain control over their coins and tokens.
The news is fantastic, but not yet fully verified.
There is currently no press release from Mastercard or its partner Mercuryo. What we have is a report from Cointelegraph. However, it is backed by quotes from a Mastercard employee as well as a tweet from Mercuryo. Therefore, it is very likely that the news is legitimate.
The gist of it is this: One can link a „non-custodial crypto wallet“ with a Mastercard, and then spend the funds in this wallet via the Mastercard at 100 million merchants in the Eurozone.
So, you own a wallet in which you still keep the keys for cryptocurrencies yourself – but can still spend the money via a credit card. How is that possible? And which wallet is meant? The answer to this is not entirely new to readers of our blog.
Already this year, payment providers like Wirex or Gnosis Pay have introduced a debit card for non-custodial wallets. The magic behind it lies in „Account Abstraction„, a method to make accounts on Ethereum „smart,“ namely into „Smart Contracts.“ After long planning, Account Abstraction was activated in the spring of 2023.
Among other things, Account Abstraction allows you to give another smart contract the authority to withdraw money from the wallet and set spending limits for it. Mastercard has already used this method to link cards to wallets with Wirex and Gnosis, and just in August, the credit card provider unveiled a partnership with the Metamask wallet.
With today’s news, Mastercard is taking another step further. Together with the payment provider Mercuryo, it brings this concept to users across the Eurozone.
There is no official announcement from Mastercard yet, but Christian Rau, a senior manager in the crypto and fintech department, gave Cointelegraph a brief interview. He explains that Mastercard is working closely with partners to „improve the user experience of a non-custodial wallet“ and, thanks to the cooperation with Mercuryo, „eliminate the traditional barriers between blockchain and conventional payments.“ This is supposed to enable consumers to „spend their digital assets simply, reliably, and securely anywhere Mastercard is accepted.“
Sounds like confirmation, right? As mentioned, details are still somewhat vague at present; the official announcements from both Mastercard and Mercuryo are still missing. But in view of Mastercard’s previous work, it is unlikely to be about Bitcoin wallets, but rather Web3 wallets, based on Ethereum, but presumably on an „L2“, a sidechain, or a rollup. Whether they are general wallets like Metamask, or special wallets made for this purpose, is unclear.
Either way, anyone who has always dreamed of autonomously custoding their money and still being able to spend it everywhere can rejoice. Because that dream will soon be fulfilled.