Mastercard has officially joined the wave of large financial entities and corporations warming up to the prospect of cryptocurrency. The company agreed to purchase an up-and-coming blockchain analytics start-up called CipherTrace.  

 

There are no known financial terms of this buy-out yet, but Mastercard stock has surged since the news of the purchase. This acquisition from Mastercard is significant in that its belief in this startup shows a willingness to answer questions that detractors of cryptocurrency may have while showing that they plan to expand its services into crypto at the same time.  

 

This is because one of the chief concerns that people have surrounding crypto is its susceptibility to online hackers due to the anonymity of crypto transactions. CipherTrace is an analytics company that studies the details of crypto transactions to bring security to the crypto landscape.  

 

They do this by developing technology that helps financial businesses, as well as law enforcement, detect and learn the signals of illegal crypto transactions. For Mastercard, this acquisition appears to be a precursor to more crypto-related rollouts shortly.  

 

Mastercard announced earlier in 2021 that it would allow transactions of select cryptocurrencies over its network later this year. Mastercard is trying to keep up with its top competitor Visa who revealed that over $1 billion worth of crypto has been spent in total through the company’s crypto debit cards.