Bitcoin price reached a new all-time high of above $48,000 on Thursday, February 11, 2021. It has managed to hold onto these gains as the price of Bitcoin is currently hovering around $48,800. Part of the rise can be traced to a recent Mastercard announcement.
New Plans For Bitcoin By Mastercard
On February 10, 2021, Mastercard revealed a strategic plan for Bitcoin. According to the announcement, the company plans to add support for crypto payments by the end of 2021. Shortly after the plans were revealed, the price of BTC shot up by around $4000.
In its announcement, Mastercard noted that digital assets were “becoming a more important part of the payments world.” It noted that they were seeing the fact play out more within their network. For instance, they noted that more people were using cards to purchase crypto, especially during the recent price surge of BTC. Mastercard is seeing more people leverage crypto cards to buy digital assets, with the ultimate goal of converting to fiat to purchase various items. Consumers hope to take advantage of bitcoins’ price appreciation to spend less on goods & services. This is drastically different from the USD, which has no growth component and also battles inflation on an annual basis.
The announcement noted that they were already working with BitPay and Wirex to allow people to use crypto cards to transact in crypto. However, Mastercard noted that in all use cases, the crypto did not go directly through their network. Instead, their crypto partners would convert digital assets into fiat and then send the funds through Mastercard.
The company plans to change all that in 2021. They will now support crypto transactions directly through their network. With the change, many more merchants will be able to accept crypto. Besides that, the change will cut out inefficiencies by allowing consumers and merchants to avoid the hassle of converting funds back and forth between crypto and fiat to make purchases.
Bank of New York Mellon Announces Bitcoin Plans
Besides Mastercard, Bank of New York Mellon, the oldest bank in the US, which was established in 1784, plans to begin accepting BTC and other crypto coins. Eventually, the bank plans to treat these assets like any other asset.
According to the bank’s Chief executive, Roman Regelman,
“Digital assets are becoming part of the mainstream.”
He made the comments during an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Announcements Drive-Up The Price Of BTC
The announcement by two major forces in the world of fiat finance signals a mainstream acceptance of crypto. Their revelations come hot on the heels of Tesla’s announcement that it would begin accepting crypto as payment for their electric cars. Additionally, the company announced that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of BTC.
The implications of these announcements will be to propel Bitcoin and other crypto coins into the mainstream. However, financial experts have been issuing warnings of the dangers of investing in crypto. They point to the high volatility of Bitcoin and the crypto market. Despite these warnings, it is worth noting that the price of BTC has grown from less than $1 in 2009 to the astounding ATH of $48,000+
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