Mastercard has partnered with Web3 players on an on-chain identity and verification framework, focusing on payments, remittances, ticketing, and NFTs. The Mastercard Crypto Credential is designed to help companies, developers, and individuals to unlock the full potential of powering payments, commerce, and economic value on-chain and across borders.
The initiative includes Bit2Me, Lirium, Mercado Bitcoin, and Uphold, which will work on a pilot project to enable transfers between the US and Latin America and the Caribbean corridors. The company also partners with Aptos Labs, Ava Labs, Polygon, and The Solana Foundation. Aptos says it is among the shortlist of blockchains to enable the identity and attestation element of sending and receiving funds through Web3.
Moreover, the partners plan to explore the utility of identity-oriented Web3 solutions use cases like NFTs, ticketing, enterprise, and payments.
“Mastercard Crypto Credential will not only define verification standards and levels but also provide necessary enabling technology to help bring more use cases to life,” said Raj Dhamodharan, EVP of digital asset and blockchain product, and partnerships, Mastercard.
In a separate announcement, Mastercard has enrolled six blockchain and digital asset startups for its StartPath programme, giving participants training, access to channels and customers, subject matter expertise, and technical collaboration. The new members are Axelar, Cheeze, Coala Pay, Qonbay.io, RociFi Labs, and Suberra. The last two are from Singapore.