Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, the largest payment systems, have recently significantly changed their views on cryptocurrencies. If previously they were wary of them, now they have become more supportive. What does this mean and what does it mean for investors?

Visa, Mastercard and PayPal all say with one voice that they are ready to integrate cryptopayments into their payment systems. Meanwhile, back in 2018, Visa CFO Vasanth Prabhu said that "bitcoin is a bubble." But it wasn't long before the payment system began collaborating with two major trading platforms, Coinbase and Fold, saying that working together with cryptocurrencies was part of its strategy to bring digital currencies into the payment system.

Visa got interested in the Ethereum cryptocurrency network in 2021. The company conducted a pilot transaction using the blockchain of this digital currency. Now Visa wants to make this service available to most of its partners by the end of 2021. In addition, Visa has announced the release of its own system for buying cryptocurrencies, which will be integrated with banks, at the end of this year.

The situation is similar with Mastercard. If a few years ago the top manager of the payment system Ajay Banga compared cryptocurrencies to "garbage", now their attitude to these assets has changed dramatically. The company is going to support transactions with digital assets directly through its network, primarily with stabelcoins.

PayPal is also actively developing applications to work with cryptocurrencies. At the end of July, the payment system announced the launch of its own cryptocurrency wallet for customers in the U.S., and on August 23 it allowed British customers to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies.

What does this mean?

The interest in cryptocurrencies among major payment systems is an important step that shows the total acceptance of digital currencies in the traditional finance market. Cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming part of the community. This trend is confirmed by the growth of capitalization. If at the beginning of 2018, shortly before the statements of the top managers of payment systems, the capitalization of the cryptocurrency market did not reach $850 billion, by the end of August 2021 it confidently passed the mark of $2 trillion.

Market participants realized that digital assets are not only a speculative tool with high volatility and a means for money laundering, but also a convenient payment system. The benefits of blockchain are primarily the speed, security and transparency of payments.

Further integration of cryptocurrencies into the traditional financial market will lead to an increase in their popularity among investors and, accordingly, to the growth of rates.