Crypto ‘Has to Become Invisible’ to Reach Mainstream: Mastercard Exec

Speaking during an online event hosted by smart contracts platform Avalanche, Mastercard’s VP for new product development and innovation Harold Bossé said the integration of cryptocurrencies into existing systems would be key to helping them go mainstream.

“[Crypto] has to become invisible,” he said. “I keep saying that and I sound like a broken record, but it has to disappear in the background for a user who doesn’t care — honestly, my mom doesn’t care if it’s [centralized finance] or DeFi.”

The executive said he expected growth in places where businesses can embed DeFi products into their existing offering.

Bossé also identified a lack of crypto knowledge at senior management levels, the cost and speed of blockchain, and regulatory issues as barriers to corporations adopting DeFi technologies.

The crypto industry has taken a battering in recent weeks due to the recent implosion of Terra and its twin tokens, UST and LUNA.  

Bossé said that confidence in crypto would also be crucial for its mass adoption.

“No one will use digital assets on blockchains unless they are absolutely certain that this money is good money,” he said.

To get more financial institutions into the space, he added, the crypto community needs to break out of its bubble and convince demographics who aren’t currently interested in digital assets of their utility.

Turning to subnets to make crypto simpler

While discussing Avalanche’s subnets product, application-specific blockchain networks that lets developers and organizations create customized blockchains, Bossé said that businesses using blockchain solutions should strive to make them imperceptible to the user.

“The complexity of the technology has to disappear,” he said. “In the endgame, we should have these subnets being operated just like the internet is operated today.”

As for the price of Avalanche’s native token, AVAX, it’s had a tough week. The native token has fallen more than 14% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap.

 

It is currently trading at $28.59.