Visa Adds Support For USDC Solana- Another Crypto Win

7 Sep 2023 by Rory Kejzerko 1 min read

In an effort to offer more high-speed cross-border transactions, payments pioneer Visa has expanded its stablecoin settlement capabilities with Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) to include its Solana edition (a.k.a. Solana USDC).

The move - which sees Visa become one of the first major mainstream finance institutions to offer large scale payment settlements using the Solana network - taps into a stablecoin market tipped to be worth a whopping $2.8 trillion come 2028 (per Bernstein).

As intuition suggests, this massive valuation - which is currently double that of the entire crypto market - forms off the basis that stablecoins offer a more attractive proposition for mainstream investors looking to get into DeFi. This is because they offer all the benefits of on-chain transactions, however without the trials and tribulations that come with market volatility…

That is, unless we’re talking about stablecoin TerraClassicUSD (USTC) which zeroed in May 2022, going from a market cap of over $18.7 billion to $100 million almost overnight.

However nonetheless, with the likes of PayPal and its PYUSD now joining stablecoin antics, the industry’s path towards a multiple trillion dollar valuation has become a whole lot clearer in recent times.

In alignment with its expansion into Solana USDC, Visa has also launched pilot programs with international payment processors Nuvei and Wordplay. This means that the two respective global user bases will now be able to make settlements using the Solana USDC stablecoin, in addition to fiat currencies.

The move comes two years on from Visa’s first foray into USDC experiments, which saw it run a pilot program alongside Crypto.com to allow users to settle cross-border transactions using the Ethereum-residing USDC.

It also comes just weeks after Solana Pay and USDC were added to world-leading ecommerce platform Shopify.

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