You Can Now Buy NFTs Without Crypto

Mastercard partners with NFT marketplaces to make purchasing digital assets more accessible

article-image

Source: Shutterstock

share

key takeaways

  • A survey showed 45% of people would consider buying NFTs with more flexibility
  • The move comes soon after Mastercard’s decision to partner with crypto exchange Coinbase earlier this year

NFT-hungry traders now have another way to snap up digital collectibles: a partnership between Mastercard and a slew of crypto-native companies.

Payment processing giant Mastercard announced that it will be teaming up with Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway and Web3 infrastructure provider MoonPay to allow customers to purchase the digital assets without owning crypto outright.

The multinational corporation found more than 45% of people it surveyed had purchased an NFT (non-fungible token) or would consider doing so with more flexibility.

Loading Tweet..

The move follows Mastercard’s decision to partner with crypto exchange Coinbase earlier this year, where users are able to directly purchase NFTs with their Mastercard.

“With the help of these companies, Mastercard’s expanding adoption of Web3 — a new version of the internet based on blockchain — adds to our existing work bringing our payment network to Coinbase’s new NFT marketplace, which opened to all Coinbase users in May,” the company said in a statement. 

“Overall, these integrations are designed to make crypto more accessible and help the NFT ecosystem keep growing, innovating and bringing in more fans.”

Mainstream payment processors have taken a keen interest in crypto and NFTs, with Visa announcing a one-year immersion program for creators interested in growing their businesses through NFTs in March this year. 

Security remains one of the biggest barriers preventing people from engaging with crypto projects, and Mastercard said it is also working on ways to reinforce its cybersecurity tools “to boost safety and protect user data for purchases people make using a Mastercard card.”

The survey found 59% of consumers would feel more confident about crypto if they knew a “reputable” organization was involved — and 63% said the government should step in to regulate digital assets and, more specifically, stablecoins.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates (11).png

Research

We believe that Exponent is best positioned to dominate the Solana yield market – the fastest-growing sector in the ecosystem – with topline liquidity increasing at an annualized rate of nearly 600%. The founding team (ex-Squads, Kamino, Solana Foundation) cares deeply about product, security, design, and user experience and understands the foundation for building a great protocol. The team’s deep ties in Solana DeFi also present a significant strategic advantage, as evidenced by Exponent PTs being onboarded as collateral on Kamino, Drift, and Loopscale before its main competitor, RateX. In this regard, we view PT integrations in money markets as the most compelling avenue for Exponent to expand its market share and own its vertical.

article-image

Franklin Templeton’s Innovation Head Sandy Kaul says institutions will issue stablecoins and tokenized cash offerings to stay competitive

article-image

Surviving financial doomsday takes some preparation

article-image

Pump.fun’s launch partners include Kraken, Kucoin, Bitget, Bybit, Gate and MEXC

article-image

Monad Foundation’s Keone Hon said the team’s been “thinking about how to grow the onchain economy for some time”

article-image

Cuts to government R&D budgets may prove penny wise, bitcoin foolish

article-image

Still relatively little is known about the memecoin platform’s forthcoming token