Mastercard Partners With Chainlink (LINK) To Allow Over 3,000,000,000 Cardholders To Make Direct Crypto Purchases

Payments giant Mastercard has tapped Chainlink ( LINK ) to connect off-chain payments to on-chain decentralized finance (DeFi).

According to a new press release , the partnership will use top decentralized exchange Uniswap and work closely with crypto firms Zero Hash, Swapper Finance, Shift4Payments, and XSwap.

Swapper Finance uses XSwap – a decentralized exchange built on Chainlink – for on-chain crypto swaps. Through integrations with Zero Hash and Shift4, users can convert fiat to crypto safely and process card payments. ZeroHash handles compliance and custody, while XSwap taps into platforms like Uniswap to complete trades with available liquidity.

The partnership will allow Mastercard holders to purchase crypto directly via a “secure fiat-to-crypto conversion.”

Says Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov of the new partnership,

“This is the type of traditional finance and decentralized finance convergence that Chainlink was built to make possible.

I’m excited about Chainlink’s ability to enable this critical connection between the traditional payments world and the over three billion cardholders in the Mastercard user base, directly into the next-generation trading environments of onchain decentralized exchanges.

It has been great collaborating closely with the Mastercard team on this innovative implementation, as well as the teams at Swapper Finance, XSwap, Shift4, and zerohash, this was a complex and multilayered collaboration, which I was thrilled to see the Chainlink community help make possible.”

Added Mastercard Blockchain Digital Assets executive vice president Raj Dhamodharan,

“There’s no doubt about it – people want to be able to easily connect to the digital assets ecosystem, and vice versa. That’s why we continue to leverage our proven expertise and global payments network to bridge the gap between onchain commerce and offchain transactions.

In coming together with Chainlink, we’re unlocking a secure and innovative way to revolutionize onchain commerce and drive the broader adoption of crypto assets.”

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Joy Chakma