Mass Adoption of Cryptocurrencies Among Large Institutions: Top 10 Cases

The crypto industry, being an amazing alternative to the traditional centralized financial system, has been gaining great momentum lately.

The number of people using crypto has been rapidly increasing. In order to stay up-to-date with the trend, many shopping services, businesses, and large institutions have to adapt by introducing crypto into their businesses.

Even governments are considering making crypto its legal tender (like El Salvador did with Bitcoin) or creating their own digital currencies (CBDCs). Thus, cryptocurrencies are now at the stage of mainstream adoption.

Some of the latest most talked about adoption cases include crypto integration by PayPal, Visa, Tesla, Pornhub, etc. However, there are many other institutions such as banks, payment services, and entertainment platforms that also boast about their implementation of digital currencies. Let’s review some of the recent crypto adoption cases.

JPMorgan Opens Access to Six Crypto Funds

The biggest US bank by assets, JPMorgan quietly started giving its customers access to half-a-dozen crypto institutions’ trust funds earlier this year. Without any public announcement, the bank has allowed its wealth management clients to use the following crypto funds: Grayscale Investments’ Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cash Trust, the Osprey Bitcoin Trust, Ethereum Trust, Ethereum Classic Trust, and a new Bitcoin fund New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG).

Apparently, JPMorgan didn’t want to make a big fuss about the news as its CEO Jamie Dimon has publicly spoken out about his disapproval of Bitcoin. However, later he admitted that if JPMorgan customers were interested in using digital currencies, and they are, the company should provide such an option.

Visa Launches Its New Crypto Consulting Services

The world payment giant has already implemented several features in the push for cryptocurrency adoption during the past year. Visa, together with its rival MasterCard, sees the adoption of digital currencies as one of the most promising paths for their development and expansion.

Only last week Visa has announced its new project supporting digital currencies – crypto consulting and advisory services. As a part of the company’s consulting and analytics division, it will help users find their way in the crypto world, from developing business strategies to learning about NFTs.

PayPal Expands Its Crypto Services

PayPal has also been on the way to adopting crypto. Even though its former CEO Bill Harris called Bitcoin a scam project, the company has changed its stance completely since then.

Last year, the payment platform made the first step of adopting digital currencies by allowing its U.S. customers to buy, sell, and hold crypto thanks to their new service. This summer, PayPal offered the same option to its users from the U.K. It looks like the company intends on expanding its crypto services even more. For example, last month PayPal enabled the “checkout with crypto” feature for its merchants.

Mastercard Opens Crypto Access to Its Clients

Mastercard has also been leading cryptocurrencies into mainstream adoption this year. Last winter, the payments behemoth announced that it would integrate several digital currencies into its network, which would make the use of crypto much easier for Mastercard customers.

Besides, this fall, Mastercard confirmed that it would allow banks and merchants on its network to offer crypto services. This way, Mastercard clients will have even more access to digital currencies.

Apart from that, last month, the payments platform declared that it would launch crypto-friendly cards in cooperation with its three partners in the Asian Pacific region.

BBVA Switzerland Adds Ethereum to Its Crypto Range

The Swiss franchise of a Spanish banking giant is on its way to adopting crypto as well. This summer, after six months of testing, BBVA Switzerland included Bitcoin into its trading and custody services for the bank’s private clients. The feature proved to be successful, so the company didn’t stop there.

This week, the Swiss division of BBVA announced that it now plans to add Ethereum to its network. By expanding its crypto portfolio, BBVA will become the first traditional bank in Europe to allow the use of ETH on its network. The bank also revealed that it would add even more digital currencies to its platform in the near future.

Tesla to Start Accepting Crypto Payments Again

One of the world’s most prominent electric vehicle manufacturers Tesla has been exploring the possibility of accepting crypto in payments. At the beginning of this year, the company bought $1.5 billion in BTC and allowed its customers to pay in this currency.

However, in May, Tesla suspended the option of paying in Bitcoin expressing concerns over mining’s negative effects on the environment. Later, though, the company confirmed that it considers accepting crypto payments again, but only if renewable energy is used for mining Bitcoin. Apart from BTC, Tesla might start accepting other digital currencies such as Dogecoin, which has been previously hyped by Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk.

Pornhub Premium Can Now Be Bought Only with Crypto

Financial institutions are not the only ones who understand the importance of adapting to the rapidly developing world of crypto. Many entertainment platforms have also started accepting digital currencies.

For example, Pornhub, one of the world’s most visited websites for adults, started accepting digital assets back in 2018. After Visa and Mastercard cut merchant services for Pornhub due to the allegations against the website’s abusive content earlier this year, crypto was left the only option for buying a premium account. Even though Pornhub’s traffic has significantly dropped since the incident happened, the adult video behemoth still has billions of users who might now be more motivated to use crypto.

MicroStrategy Acquires Almost 9k BTC in Q3

The business-intelligence software vendor MicroStrategy is now one of the world’s largest public owners of Bitcoin with more than 14,000 BTC in its holdings.

This fall MicroStrategy confirmed that it had acquired 9,000 BTC in Q3, making its total Bitcoin’s holdings amount to 14,000 BTC or around $7 billion. Knowing the total MicroSrategy market capitalization of $7.4 billion, one can understand that most of the vendor’s money is now held in BTC.

Morgan Stanley to Offer Access to Bitcoin Funds

Morgan Stanley became the first large U.S. bank to enableits wealthiest clients to access Bitcoin funds. The three digital currency institutions Morgan Stanley has become partners with are Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz’s crypto firm, and a joint effort by FS Investments and NYDIG. The option was introduced in March of this year.

Last month, Morgan Stanley published a comprehensive crypto guide targeted at its wealth management clients. The company has also recently established a special crypto research team. So, it is obvious that the bank plans on exploring digital currencies deeply.

Goldman Sachs’s Support of Cryptocurrencies

Another large American investment bank to support digital assets is Goldman Sachs. After Bitcoin was added to its network, the company announced that it also plans to allow its clients to trade with Ethereum.

Unlike other financial institutions that remain suspicious of cryptocurrencies, Goldman Sachs fully supports digital asset development. The bank’s officials even made positive predictions for some of the most prominent cryptos last month.

Bottom Line

As we can see, many of the world’s largest banks, as well as payment and entertainment services are trying to adapt to the use of digital currencies as best as they can. Even the most skeptical ones can’t deny the growing popularity of digital assets and dare to embrace the crypto space.

My personal belief is that it is still only the beginning. In the near future, cryptocurrencies will probably be as accessible and widely used as their fiat counterparts, if not more.

Pauline Shangett is the Chief Business Development Officer in ChangeNOW. She has extensive experience in music marketing and promotion, a career she pursued before entering into the crypto space in 2018, where she’s stayed ever since. Pauline’s favorite things include decentralization, crypto mass adoption, marketing, videogames, and tattoos.