Contrary to the current downturn in the crypto market, Harold Bossé, Vice President and New Product Development and Innovation at MasterCard, is bullish on the prospects of the industry. He said mass adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology is imminent under certain conditions.
Millions of People Already Using Digital Assets
Bossé expressed these thoughts at a live webinar, Powering Business with Blockchain, organized by Avalanche, on May 24. Two other participants at the online event were Pavel Matveev, CEO & Co-founder of Wirex, and John Nahas, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Ava Labs.
Millions of people are already consuming digital assets and sending them throughout the world, the Mastercard exec asserted.
“They are early adopters and new adopters, but we have switched toward mass markets, [and] that will be a very important aspect for financial institutions to move into the space,” he said.
Challenges and Need for Security
However, some challenges stop crypto assets from becoming mainstream and corporations and big players from entering the market, the MasterCard executive explained. These can be a lack of understanding among senior management, commercial rationale surrounding scalability, cost and speed, and regulatory concerns.
“No one will use digital assets on blockchains unless they’re absolutely certain this money is good money,” Bossé said.
The current spate of a market downturn that has seen LUNA and UST collapse points to the need for security; it needs to become invisible and recede into the background. Users don’t care whether it’s centralized or Defi, he explained.
Startups Should Think Out of Box
An important criterion for new startups will be to use emerging technologies to work on ideas that don’t exist today and create a business around them.
“Think about the advent of the internet; no one was thinking that Amazon could even be a concept — you need the internet for Amazon to work… We’re in the same situation: How do we transform the lives of people and go into demographics or groups of people who don’t really think about blockchain first but think about their business problems,” he asked.
How the crypto industry can get businesses to think and use these emerging technologies to solve their problems and charge for their services is another very significant area for startups. It’s about promising beyond normal business expectations and building a community that some may find an uncomfortable zone.
Mastercard has been ramping up its crypto payment infrastructure to introduce such opportunities to its customers. Last October, the payment services giant announced it would allow the banks on its network to provide bitcoin services. And in April 2022, Raj Dhamodharan, Global Head of Crypto and Blockchain at Mastercard, claimed that digital assets are “probably the most mature investment” instrument.