According to a recent research paper published by the Santander Bank, the rise of bitcoin, and its underlying technology, the blockchain, can end up having a strong impact on the card market, by hurting both acquirers and issuer banks, but benefitting credit and debit card emitters such as MasterCard and Visa.

The paper, which is mostly focused on the Brazilian market, warns that the region’s largest debit and credit card operator, Cielo, will be negatively affected if bitcoin adoption grows. In fact, researchers at the Santander Bank believe that the entire business models of both Cielo and other similar firms will be challenged, due to numerous merchant discount rates and the POS revenues.