Mastercard Enables Direct NFT Payment Options for Marketplace Operators

Mastercard has been active in the NFT space. In particular, the company signed an agreement with Coinbase NFTs in January to allow the purchase of credit and debit cards on its platform. The payments giant is now expanding this functionality to multiple NFT markets.

According to a blog post, Mastercard is partnering with The Sandbox, Immutable X, Candy Digital, Spring, Mintable, Nifty Gateway, and MoonPay to “bring its payments network to Web3.” Following the integration, users will be able to buy NFTs using their cards, rather than go through the process of first buying cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Solana.

“Mastercard is expanding its partnership with NFT marketplaces and web3 providers to simplify the process of buying NFTs. Now anyone can buy an NFT with their Mastercard, without having to buy crypto first,” the financial services company tweeted.

Despite the current market turmoil fueled by the general crypto market crash, the NFT space has enjoyed significant patronage. Combined, the new marketplaces that Mastercard is onboarding “generated more than $25 billion in sales in 2021—from art to sports to video games to collectibles to metaverse platforms.”

“We’re working with these companies to allow people to use their Mastercard cards for NFTs purchases, whether that’s on one of these companies’ NFT marketplaces or using their crypto services,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President of Digital Asset Blockchain Products & Partnerships at Mastercard.

Although the decision to enable NFT card purchases will undoubtedly simplify the process of buying a digital collectible, it is unclear if it will attract new players to the industry. Dhamodharan, however, argues that the change “could have a big impact on the NFT ecosystem,” given that 2.9 billion Mastercards have been issued worldwide.

To support its argument, MasterCard cites its recent survey of more than 35,000 people in 40 countries. As many as 45 percent of respondents have already purchased an NFT or plan to do so, while nearly 50 percent of the study group expressed support for flexible payment options when purchasing one.