Mastercard chooses 7 crypto startups for Start Path accelerator
International payment giant Mastercard focuses on the digital asset industry, following moves by its main competitor Visa.
Mastercard keeps its focus on the digital asset industry by welcoming a batch of major crypto startups in its fintech accelerator.
As a part of Mastercard start path, the company announced a new startup engagement program which aims to support companies working with digital assets like crypto and blockchain.
The 7 startups in the program includes digital wallet and trading platform Uphold, crypto storage firm GK8, American investment platform Domain Money, blockchain oracle startup SupraOracles, blockchain infrastructure provider STACS, digital asset firm Taurus, and an NFT platform Mintable.
To grow and develop their solutions, each new startup will be solving a challenge with the support of the company's expertise. The newly joined crypto startups will use the program to connect Mastercard’s ecosystem worldwide, the firm said.
Executive vice president of Mastercard, Jess Turner said that the company has been engaged with the digital currency ecosystem since 2015.
“We believe we can play a key role in digital assets, helping to shape the industry and provide consumer protection and security. Part of our role is to forge the future of cryptocurrency, and we’re doing that by bridging mainstream financial principles with digital assets innovations,” Jess Turner said.
Since its launch in 2014, more than 250 startups have participated in Mastercard’s program. Earlier this year, the payment card provider added 6 other fintech and digital asset-related startups, like Cledera, Jifti, Moeda Seeds and others.
In further increasing its push into the digital asset industry, Mastercard followed the steps of Visa, its main competitor company. In its latest crypto update in early July, Visa said that it would continue to support the development of the crypto industry as part of its business, also reporting that its crypto-enabled cards processed over $1B in total spending in the first half of 2021.
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