This week MasterCard suffered a “glitch” whereby payments were not being processed. It’s safe to say that MasterCard’s downtime resulted in thousands of angry customers around the globe being left stranded. Only a week earlier Visa – MasterCard’s main rival – suffered from similar issues. In the meantime, Bitcoin and other major cryptos from around the globe were gloating about a 99% uptime. On social media, there were repeated calls for MasterCard to partner with Ripple to make use of their RXTP protocol. If decentralized payment solutions are offering a better uptime percentage, why are major corporations not utilizing this technology?
Fear of Losing Control
Out of the three major electronic global payment providers, only American Express (Amex) has partnered with blockchain technology. When was the last time Amex was in the news for having virtually all payments on its platform declined? Yet, Vasant Prabhu has repeatedly bashed Bitcoin and the entire crypto industry. While Prabhu – the current Visa CFO – isn’t really known as the voice of the future, it is surprising to see someone of his stature attack the future of his very own industry. This could be due to the fact the traditional electronic global payment providers are afraid of change and feel they are losing control of a market they once reigned over. The crypto world challenges these traditionalist values and – quite frankly – this dismissive attitude to blockchain could be their undoing.
Centralization is the Way of Old
Almost every large player in the crypto world agrees that centralization is a negative thing, this is why the community is so afraid of a company controlling 51% of the Bitcoin network hash rate. Last week Vitalik Buterin slammed centralized exchanges. Buterin who created Ethereum said that he hopes they “burn in hell as much as possible.” Whilst this is a strong example, it does highlight how the crypto community sees centralized entities. Even though centralization will play some part in the future of crypto, as the community evolves and expands it will slowly become a concept of a bygone time.
Switching your bank account and cards over to blockchain based platform might not be practical and reasonable for the time being. However, it is something to certainly look into and consider in the next few years. As more payment companies begin to let their merchants accept cryptos, the need for companies such as Visa and MasterCard to adapt and use blockchain technology will only grow. Those who fail to adapt could end up in the currency graveyard alongside the denarius.
