Mastercard VP is bullish on crypto and sees imminent mass adoption ahead

During the World Economic Forum meeting, in Avalanche’s Powering Business with Blockchain webinar series, vice President and New Product Development and Innovation Harold Bossé said that millions of individuals today are consuming and sending digital assets around the world, ‘They are early adopters and new adopters, but we have switched toward mass markets, [and] that will be a very important aspect for financial institutions to move into the space.’

Mastercard has been ambitious in its expansion into the crypto market as they are offering crypto rewards and acquiring crypto companies. It has partnered with Gemini and Nexo to launch crypto credit cards. The credit card giant filed a series of trademark applications related to the Metaverse as well as plans to create a marketplace for digital assets, NFT-backed media and e-commerce platforms to enable users to make easy transactions in the Metaverse.  

Challenges in the crypto industry

However, he highlighted a number of challenges that are stopping companies from entering the crypto market, including lack of senior management understanding, commercial rationale surrounding scalability, cost and speed, and regulatory concerns.

No one will use digital assets on blockchains unless they’re absolutely certain this money is good money,” Bossé said.

In the recent month, there have been headwinds setting back the growth of the crypto market, including the downfall of algorithmic stablecoin Terra (UST) and Luna as well as concerns surrounding the sector’s regulation. 

‘It has to become invisible. I keep saying that and I sound like a broken record, but it has to disappear into the background for users who don’t care — honestly, my mom doesn’t care if it’s [centralized finance] or DeFi.’

Startups should think outside the box

‘Think about the advent of the internet; no one was thinking that Amazon.com Inc could even be a concept — you need the internet for Amazon to work," Bossé said. ‘We're in the same situation: How do we transform the lives of people and go into demographics or groups of people who don't really think about blockchain first but think about their business problems?’

In a nutshell, Bossé is calling on startups to leverage emerging technologies to work on their ideas and build their businesses. The crypto industry gets businesses to think about solving their problems in an innovative way through these new technologies and entrepreneurs can monetize their different services and ‘go beyond what’s happening today.’ It is also about building a community outside of normal businesses’ comfort zone.

Photo: Getty