The Block: Mastercard’s global head of crypto explains how the company is embracing NFTs and more

During an episode of The Scoop from last November, Mastercard EVP Jess Turner explained how Mastercard was pivoting to become a ‘crypto first’ company.

Mastercard has since made significant progress on this decision, including the filing of over a dozen metaverse and crypto-related trademarks.

During this latest episode of The Scoop -- recorded at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami -- Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s EVP of Blockchain/Digital Asset Products &amp; Digital Partnerships, shared the progress the payments company has made since entering the crypto industry, and how the move is a natural extension of Mastercard’s core business.

As Dhamodharan explained:

“We are a payment company that enables commerce. That’s what we are about. The reason we got into crypto is this is about providing choice and making sure people can exercise that choice safely and securely. That’s what our network always stood for: enabling safe commerce experiences across multiple rails.”

Mastercard has also made progress on the NFT front, including a partnership with Coinbase and an OpenSea integration . These decisions form part of Mastercard’s broader efforts to simplify the crypto experience for end-users.

As Dhamodharan commented during the interview:

“This is not about a crypto native going and buying an NFT… it’s really about enabling every artist and every creator to be able to have a large market for them to sell their artwork, and it’s really powering the creator economy. And how can we do that if we don’t enable common consumers to be able to purchase and hold the NFT using a simple consumer experience?”

During this Episode, Chaparro and Dhamodharan also discuss:

Mastercard and the metaverse Multi-chain/multi-currency future The NFT purchasing experience This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks , Coinbase Prime &amp; Cross River Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage &amp; transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com .

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