Solana Labs COO Raj Gokal calls Visa pilot a 'big step' for digital payments

Solana SOL -3.55% Labs COO and co-founder Raj Gokal said the expansion of Visa's USDC +0.073% pilot to include the Solana blockchain is a step toward making digital payments more accessible.

"This collaboration is a big step for ushering in the next chapter of digital payments innovation for users worldwide," he said in a note to The Block. "Visa is one of the most trusted global brands in payments and for them to be expanding into crypto and using newly built and validated infrastructure inspires confidence for the crypto market."

As The Block reported yesterday, Visa announced the expansion of its stablecoin settlement capabilities to include the Solana blockchain. The pilot has already been operating on the Ethereum blockchain, and the payments company said it partnered with merchant acquirers Worldpay and Nuvei for pilot programs.

Solana transaction throughput

Gokal added that Solana's transaction throughput — its ability to process high numbers of transactions per second — make it a good fit for stablecoins in general.

"I want Solana to be so cheap that it saves Visa money to use it over its own in-house infra, and I want Solana to be so fast that it improves the user experience as well," Solana co-founder and Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said on X (formerly Twitter).

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire added on X that Visa has benefits over Swift as a real-time payments network and that the pilot shows USDC is not just for retail users but has wholesale applications, too.