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Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it is now supporting debit and credit card payments, in a move expected to help increase mainstream adoption. The feature will allow investors to pay for cryptocurrency through Visa and Mastercard, through a third-party payment gateway.
In a statement published on their website, the exchange said ‘Binancians’ could now use credit cards to buy a range of cryptocurrencies.
According to the exchange, “As part of Binance’s larger mission to increase the adoption and mainstream accessibility of crypto, Binancians are now able to use Visa and MasterCard to buy…and start trading on Binance.com within minutes.”
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the firm “want[s] to provide Binance traders with fast and easy access to crypto, in the most secure way possible.”
Citing the role of legacy payment gateways in expanding the reach of crypto, Zhao said “the crypto industry is still in its early stages and most of the world’s money is still in fiat.”
Payments will be facilitated through a partnership with Simplex, a fiat to crypto card payment processor. According to Binance, customers will be able to buy cryptocurrency with low fees and fast transactions speeds of 10-30 minutes.
Simplex CEO and co-founder Nimrod Lehavi described credit card payments as “a key factor in wider adoption of crypto in general,” building trust and familiarity with consumers through card transactions.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volumes, Binance already handles around $580 million running through the exchange every 24 hours.
With the new facility for credit card payments in particular likely to fuel further speculation, it remains to be seen whether the move could further consolidate the firm’s market share.
The development comes just days after Binance launched Binance OTC, a service launched for trades at over 20 BTC.
Similarly, a few days earlier, Binance found itself involved in the hack of New Zealand crypto exchange Cryptopia. Binance announced it had frozen tokens coming from the exchange to curb losses, with as much as $16 million in crypto stolen during the attack.
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