You Can Now Buy NFTs Without Crypto
Mastercard partners with NFT marketplaces to make purchasing digital assets more accessible
Source: Shutterstock
- 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.
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:
- The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
- 0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.
- Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
- Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
- The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
- Lightspeed: All things Solana.
- Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.
