It has often been said that mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies can be attained through an integration with the payment systems that people are already familiar with. Recent reports indicate that Visa understands this concept, given the fact that the company has announced that they are working towards integrating digital currencies with their payment network.

In a recent blogpost, Visa has stated that alternative means of payment, such as fiat-backed stablecoins, have the potential of revolutionizing the world’s payment systems. According to the company, “We’re reshaping how money moves across the globe, and that means pursuing a broad array of technologies and partnerships. In that regard, digital currencies offer an exciting avenue for us to continue doing what we do best: expanding our network-of-networks to support new forms of commerce”.

Over the last couple of months, countries throughout the world have been exploring the concept of central bank-backed digital currencies, a digital alternative to fiat that would completely digitalize everyday spending and largescale inter-state/inter-bank/inter-corporation monetary transfers. It only makes sense that nation-states agree with this concept, given the centralized nature of CBDCs.

Several countries such as China are already beta-testing their CBDCs, whereas others are actively-developing these financial instruments. For instance, recent developments suggest that the United States is currently working on the conceptualization and creation of a Digital Dollar. In a recent Banking Committee Senate hearing, Senator Tom Cotton mentioned that: “The U.S. dollar has to keep earning that place in the global payments system. It has to be better than bitcoin… it has to be better than a digital yuan”. During the senate hearing, debates were also held on a series of other crypto-related topics, including but not limited the regulatory oversight upon stablecoins, the advantages of blockchain-based financial markets, and the dawn of a new financial architecture.