Mastercard launches Crypto Credential for a more secure, verified blockchain experience

by Arthur · April 28, 2023

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(Kitco News) – Mastercard has announced the launch of Crypto Credential in an effort to establish a set of common standards and infrastructure that will help certify trusted interactions between consumers and businesses using blockchain networks.

According to the announcement made on Friday, the Crypto Credential is being created to provide a way for trusted, compatible and verifiable interactions to take place on public blockchain networks to give the blockchain industry more legitimacy.

“With the Mastercard Crypto Credential, we can help ensure that those interested in interacting across Web3 environments meet defined standards for the type of activities they wish to pursue,” the press release states. “Mastercard Crypto Credential will not only define verification standards and levels, but also provide the necessary enabling technology to help bring more use cases to life.”

One benefit of the new service is that it allows easy-to-remember aliases to be created to help consumers share wallet addresses with each other. This helps improve the consumer experience and reduces the potential for errors.

Crypto Credential will also “bring richer information to blockchain transactions through metadata, and help define attributes of a wallet to ensure transactions complete as intended,” Mastercard said.

The service will use CipherTrace’s suite of services to verify addresses and support travel compliance for cross-border transactions. Mastercard has partnered with crypto wallet providers Bit2Me, Lirium, Mercado Bitcoin and Uphold to enable transfers between the US and Latin America and the Caribbean corridors.

The payments firm has also teamed up with public blockchain network organizations Aptos Labs, Ava Labs, Polygon and The Solana Foundation to help introduce the application to developers in their ecosystems. “Together we will work together to improve verification in NFTs, ticketing, enterprise and other payment solutions,” Mastercard said.

This new service is just the latest cryptocurrency-related endeavor to be announced by Mastercard, as the firm has been one of the most active multinational financial services providers in the crypto space in recent years.

In October, the firm announced the launch of ‘Crypto Secure’, a new crypto service desk focused on helping banks identify and prevent fraud from occurring on crypto trading platforms. Later that month, the company launched ‘Crypto Source’, a new program that enables financial institutions to start offering secure crypto trading services to their customers.

In January, Mastercard partnered with Polygon to launch the Web3-based Mastercard Artist Accelerator program, which is designed to help up-and-coming artists establish themselves and connect with fans in the Web3 arena.

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