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Mastercard, one of the world’s largest payment providers, has once again caught attention with its Web3 initiatives. According to the announcement made by the team on October 12, a test was successfully completed for supporting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in different blockchain ecosystems. Mastercard also stated that they based this test on Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) and Wrapped Ethereum (wETH) samples.
Mastercard’s Revolutionary Solution
The experiment was conducted in collaboration with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the country’s Digital Finance Cooperative Research Center. Cuscal and Mintable also participated in the trial.
In the experiment, the Mastercard team created a kind of simulator. They used this simulator to purchase an NFT listed on the Ethereum ecosystem as a CBDC holder. During the payment process, they locked the pilot CBDC token created by the RBA and created a kind of Wrapped CBDC token on the Ethereum network for the purchase to take place.
However, a prerequisite for the test transactions was that both the buyer and the seller needed to have Ethereum wallets, as well as the NFT marketplace smart contract needed to be on the platform’s “allowlist.” The successful locking of the Wrapped CBDC token proved the ability to prevent all other transfers and apply controls even on public blockchain networks.
Mastercard and Mintable Partnership
In this testing phase, Mastercard used the Multi Token Network solution introduced in June 2023, which integrates payment technology with blockchain ecosystems. Zack Burcks, CEO and founder of Mintable, stated the following regarding the collaboration:
“We have created a system in collaboration with Mastercard that allows easy integration of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. This will potentially eliminate fraud and theft incidents, put an end to document and record loss, and establish a use case that brings new possibilities for trading.”
RBA had previously stated that a CBDC denominated in Australian dollars would enable complex payment arrangements and innovations that cannot be replaced with fiat money in the financial sector. However, officials also shared with the public that further research is needed to evaluate the benefits of this system.