Bitcoin Forum

Mastercard acquires CipherTrace to enhance crypto capabilities

https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/2021/september/mastercard-acquires-ciphertrace-to-enhance-crypto-capabilities/

Security and fraud detection provide additional transparency and support for digital assets ecosystem latest investment helps company accelerate and expand crypto-related strategy.

Mastercard  will extend its capabilities deep into the field of digital assets with an agreement to acquire CipherTrace, a leading cryptocurrency intelligence company with insight into more than 900 cryptocurrencies.

well mastercard is expected to do this, they need to please governments when governments charge them for security issues involving cryptocurrencies, although when comparing crimes involving Fiat Vs crimes involving cryptocurrencies FIat far outperforms. I hope this type of measure is a good thing for this market.

I see this as a sign that CT didn't have a competitive product compared to Chainalysis and Elliptic.

Or why else would they sell when the government's crazy batshit is just starting to take off?

In the world of finances, risk management is one of the most critical areas to invest in. So it seems Mastercard is gearing up for crypto adoption and that's why they want one of the leading crypto risk management company to remain within their own control. But unfortunately, Mastercard reportedly will not allow bitcoin or any other cryptos in their network. They will only allow stablecoins instead. Let's wait to see the final outcome!

Mastercard plus CipherTrace seems like a perfect combination for improved tracking and surveillance of people, and I don't see how this can bring more trust in digital assets.
Interesting part is that terms of this agreement were not disclosed, so we can only imagine how much mastercard paid for this, and maybe they are aware that time of using credit cards is near end stages.
People in China are almost not using cash and credit cards anymore, and similar future is planned for rest of the world.

This is an interesting (and bold!) statement.

It has occurred to me that they may try to become some sort of exchange between crypto and fiat just to preserve the use of their cards, but allowing only "clean" crypto.
Or maybe they want to start "helping" central banks into issuing CBDCs (with full surveillance, obviously) as a new field of activity (and to keep receiving tx fees).

However, nations moving toward crypto and CBDCs means the end of an era; I am sure that Visa and Mastercard are getting desperate.

Does it mean that there will be an upgraded version of centralisation and surveillance when people are trying to buy their crypto on an exchange using their debit card?

Perhaps, exchanging their privacy for convenience is an inevitable effect for mass adoption especially for newbies and non-technical person.

Wow, I never expect that Mastercard will dig down deeper in crypto space and acquire CipherTrace. Not really sure though how it will enhance their crypto capabilities. On the contrary as others have speculated, this could lead to surveillance (as if they haven't done with their users already). But since crypto is really hard to track, then maybe they can tap CipherTrace services to do if for them.

Maybe because the deal was too good to not accept?

Companies selling out to bigger companies ain't anything new, even if the acquired company totally dominates it's niche/industry. There's a reason why negotiations exist in the first place— for both the buyer and seller to reach a certain price where both parties will be happy.

You'd have to be living under a rock ^{[in the past few years]}, to give such a statement!

I highly doubt it'd have a positive impact on the market ^{[it'd be more beneficial to them]}.

Regardless of the acquisition part, it opens the door to more/new opportunities ^{[despite having my doubts over its future success, to them, it's a no-brainer]}.

I agree, it makes absolutely no sense from a technical point of view to integrate the two products together (as MasterCard doesn't deal with cryptocurrencies), so this looks more to me like a financial windfall than a true partnership.

Or maybe they're just going to sap CT's skilled engineers and researchers, like how Zoom took all of Keybase's crypto experts to make its encryption feature (at the expense of the Keybase app).

Of course they won't go the anonymous route; they're a highly regulatory compliant company. If anything, this acquisition is actually made to potentially trace(through chainalysis) the people who are attempting to be anonymous.