FTX and Visa partner up to allow cryptocurrency payments in 40 countries

By: Mark Jessy

October 7, 2022 2:22 PM

When it was announced that Sam Bankman-company, Friend's FTX, would launch a debit card in partnership with payments giant Visa, the price of the FTX token jumped by more than 7 percent.

There's a chance that using cryptocurrency for purchases will become much simpler. One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX, has teamed up with payment processing giant Visa to launch debit cards in 40 countries.

This change would make it possible for FTX customers to use "Zero fees" debit cards when making purchases. The website also states that there is no fee associated with having a card.

According to recent rankings, Sam Bankman-Fried is one of the most influential people in the cryptocurrency industry. He has long expressed a desire to release an FTX debit card. His belief that Bitcoin's future as a payments network is bleak is reflected in his company's choice to partner with legacy payment rails rather than crypto payment rails like the Lightning Network.

The news sent the price of the FTX token, the platform's native cryptocurrency token, up 7% to a peak of $25.62. However, the token has yet to reach its all-time high, which is currently near $80.

USD value of FTX token over the preceding 24 hours. Reference: CoinMarketCap

This would put Visa on par with Mastercard, which has also shown interest in the cryptocurrency space recently. In spite of the bear market in cryptocurrencies that began in 2022, according to CFO Vasant Prabhu, "there's still steady interest in crypto."