People familiar with the matter said that U.S. payment giants Visa and Mastercard are putting a halt to plans to form new partnerships with crypto firms following a string of high-profile failures last year. The crypto sector experienced a stunning turnaround in 2022, as the bankruptcies of industry titans FTX and BlockFi, as well as the controversial Terra disaster, shook investors and increased regulatory scrutiny by a significant margin. According to Visa, previous notable failures in the crypto industry serve as a crucial reminder that this kind of technology has a long way to go before it can become an integral part of mainstream payments and financial services. However, the crypto strategy and focus for the company shall remain unchanged, even if there is a temporary pause. For its part, Mastercard indicated that efforts to continue focusing on blockchain technology alongside the extraction and analysis of useful data pertaining to the implemenation of said technology is still very much the focus going forward, even with the temporary setback. In April 2022, Mastercard collaborated with crypto lender Nexo to launch a crypto-backed payment card. Later on in the year, just a month after announcing an expanded partnership with the exchange, Visa terminated its global credit card agreements with FTX.
