- Mastercard is expanding its Crypto Credential system to self-custodial wallets through a partnership with Polygon and Mercuyo.
- The company has broadened its presence in the crypto space through partnerships with Ripple, Chainlink, Revolut and other blockchain platforms.
Mastercard, an American multinational financial services company, has secured a strategic partnership with the Polygon (POL) blockchain. Leveraging this partnership, Mastercard will enable crypto payments for its customers and merchants.
Mastercard uses Polygon for crypto payments
If revealed in an X post, Mastercard chose the Polygon blockchain to launch username-based transfers for self-custodial wallets. This integration is supported by Mercuryo, a global payment infrastructure platform that serves as a bridge between Web2 and Web3 decentralized finance.
The central vision of the partnership is for Mastercard to extend its Crypto Credential system to self-custodial wallets. Essentially, Mastercard plans to build blockchain-based infrastructures that will allow consumers, merchants and financial institutions to conduct crypto transactions.
This initiative introduces authenticated, username-based transfers that replace long, complex blockchain wallet addresses with simple, human-readable aliases. This is similar to how users send money via a username in apps like Venmo and PayPal.
Mastercard provides the common authentication framework and Crypto Credential standard to build trust in blockchain transfers. Through the Mastercard Crypto Credential, users can onboard once, receive a verified username, link their wallet and gain instant access to assets.
They no longer ever have to copy a hexadecimal string. If explained in our last post, the initiative simplifies the user experience and reduces the risk of crypto being accidentally sent to the wrong address.
Mastercard selected Polygon as the first blockchain network chosen to support payments due to its low-cost infrastructure built for speed, reliability and scalability.
Mercuryo, on the other hand, will onboard verified users and provide login credentials, while Polygon provides the blockchain rails.
Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President Blockchain & Digital Assets at Mastercard, previously shared his thoughts on the initiative. He said Mastercard Crypto Credential is building trust in digital token transfers by streamlining wallet addresses and adding meaningful authentication.
Mastercard is going deeper into the crypto world
Notably, the new initiative is just one of Mastercard’s latest expansion moves into the crypto sector.
In a recent study we reported Next, Mastercard partnered with Ripple Labs and Gemini to test a new method for settling credit card transactions. The company wanted to use the RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger to streamline and improve global payment systems.
For its part, Gemini will link its credit card, issued by WebBank, to a blockchain-based clearing network that settles transactions in RLUSD. This integration replaces the traditional bank transfer process behind the scenes.
In another crypto expansion move, Mastercard integrated with Chainlink through Swapper Finance. If named in our previous newsletter, the partnership aims to provide 3.5 billion cardholders with direct access to DeFi deposits.
As for Polygon, the blockchain also recorded a wave of partnerships in 2025. In November, Calastone, a leading global fund network, linked its Tokenized Distribution platform to the Polygon network. The integration is enabled tokenized fund transactions to operate immediately on the blockchain infrastructure.
Revolution also integrated Polygon to enable instant stablecoin transfers and expand POL trading and staking for users. The Revolut app now supports stablecoin-based trading and payments using Polygon’s blockchain, with more than 65 million users in 38 countries.