Mastercard UK Partners With José Mourinho For First-Ever NFT Giveaway
September 18 2021 - 02:34PM
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Mastercard, a multinational financial services corporation, has
jumped on the NFT bandwagon. Non-fungible tokens (NFT) have
continued to gain popularity among mainstream industries. The most
recent addition to the NFT world is the global payments leader.
Related Reading | Visa Describes NFTs As Promising Means To
Engage With The Fans On Thursday, September 16, the
company announced that it had created its first-ever NFT
in partnership with the renowned football coach José Mourinho, who
is also a Mastercard global ambassador. This unique NFT is an
animated digital football with José’s signature on one of the
panels. The company’s U.K. branch made this announcement. It
included a raffle for cardholders in the United Kingdom to win the
company’s first NFT. According to the company, the experience will
be in English and is free to book, and is available until September
30. Cardholders based in the U.K. can sign up from now
till that date for a chance to win. Additionally, only one winner
will be selected as there will be only one NFT. Details of how to
receive the NFT will be shared by Mastercard’s sponsorship team,
via email after the prize draw. The NFT will be hosted on a server
owned by the company and backed by their proprietary technology.
MasterCard And Its Digital Assets Journey The Financial Services
company entered the crypto space last year. Since then, it has made
big moves in crypto and blockchain integrated services. The company
acknowledged that digital assets are becoming a more important part
of the payments world. Related Reading | Real Adoption: How
Will Mastercard’s Crypto Acceptance Affect Bitcoin Price? In 2020,
Mastercard announced the expansion of its cryptocurrency program,
making it simpler and faster for partners to bring secure,
compliant payment cards to market. This effort was to aid adoption
and create innovative experiences in the crypto space. The company
teamed up with Wirex and BitPay to create crypto cards
that allow people to transact using their cryptocurrencies. In a
bid to make crypto more accessible to everyone, in March 2021,
Mastercard and Wirex officially launched the Mastercard debit
card in the U.K. and EEA, as well as the rewards program across the
globe. Total crypto market cap rises to $2.17 Trillion | Source:
Crypto Total Market Cap from TradingView.com In July this year,
Mastercard announced the launch of a corporate program,
Start Path, for Blockchain and crypto startups. Start
Path started with seven global crypto and digital assets
startups that focused on solving a unique industry challenge. It
has a location in every region. Still, in July,
it announced the creation of a simplified payments card
offering for cryptocurrency companies. It said that it will
“enhance its card program for cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges,
making it simpler for partners to convert cryptocurrency to
traditional fiat currency.” Related Reading | Mastercard
Furthers Investment Into Crypto Card Integration Also, just this
month, the company made a big bet on crypto by buying blockchain
analytics startup CipherTrace. On September 9, the payments giant
announced it entered into an agreement to buy CipherTrace for
an undisclosed amount. “Digital assets have the potential to
reimagine commerce, from everyday acts like paying and getting paid
to transforming economies, making them more inclusive and
efficient,” said Ajay Bhalla, president, Cyber & Intelligence
at Mastercard. “With the rapid growth of the digital asset
ecosystem comes the need to ensure it is trusted and safe. Our aim
is to build upon the complementary capabilities of Mastercard and
CipherTrace to do just this.” The creation of this NFT is
Mastercard’s most recent move in the digital assets space. Other
financial services providers are also making moves in the space.
Last month, Visa purchased its first NFT. It later went on to
release its NFT whitepaper. Featured image by Mastercard's
priceless.com, Chart by TradingView.com
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