Mastercard and Bakkt Verifone and BitPay

[DaveF]

For those of you who missed the announcements:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5362990.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5367651.0

So we now have Mastercard doing crypto and Verifone doing crypto. 2 of the largest players in the credit card market.
What is interesting is that both of them are using other providers to work with instead of doing it themselves.
Is it that it's easier to let someone else do it and if it works just take them over? Or is it time to market and this is quicker? Some other reason?

Odd that 2 large companies that are getting into crypto are having other people do the back end heavy lifting.

My theory is that if it works well they are just going to fully take over the crypto businesses and absorb them. If it does not then nothing lost. Wonder what everyone else is thinking.

-Dave
(lets keep the BitPay sucks / Bakkt sucks out of the thread please and thank you)

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[o_e_l_e_o]

My theory is that if it works well they are just going to fully take over the crypto businesses and absorb them. If it does not then nothing lost. Wonder what everyone else is thinking.

Agree with you here. Why spend millions building their own bitcoin division from scratch, hiring people, building infrastructure, making partnerships with blockchain analysis companies and exchanges, and all the rest of it, unless you are absolutely sure this is the future direction of your company. They want to keep their finger in every pie so they are always relevant, and this is the easy way of doing it. If it turns out that bitcoin payments become a significant part of their business, then they'll bring everything in house at that point, either by building their own system or just buying out their payment processor.

Same kind of thing when Coinbase partnered with Neutrino for blockchain analysis, and then just bought them out and turned them in to Coinbase Analytics. Mastercard also bought CipherTrace recently.

(lets keep the BitPay sucks / Bakkt sucks out of the thread please and thank you)

You could just have said "STFU Leo"

[witcher_sense]

Mastercard has already explained here why they are not doing crypto things directly.
In order to have a chance of being added to the Mastercard ecosystem, a cryptocurrency should have the following characteristics:

1) The ideal coin should provide the same level of privacy and security as in credit cards.

2) The ideal coin should have an in-built identity verification system to provide compliance with current KYC/AML regulations.

3) The ideal coin should follow strictly local laws and regulations.

4) The ideal coin should not be volatile so that people can use it for payments, not investments and speculations.

Bitcoin will never be added to the Mastercard ecosystem on the grounds that it is not a centralized piece of stable regulated shitcoin.

[NeuroticFish]

Well, the banking system has the web or relations without which crypto businesses have difficulties getting in touch with fiat dependent businesses (i.e. most merchants for now).
So these partnerships are clearly a win-win situation (from businesses point of view, not necessarily for crypto and clearly not for users' privacy). And I agree with OP:

if it works well they are just going to fully take over the crypto businesses and absorb them

[avikz]

Odd that 2 large companies that are getting into crypto are having other people do the back end heavy lifting.

Not at all! It's rather wise from the mainly three points,

1. Cost
2. Security
3. Infrastructure

Any big business will always prefer a third party before jumping into a very new technological landscape. Because they required someone to do the ground job while they themselves indulge into marketing and drive revenue. It's just sensible business decision and also helps limiting the risk exposure.

My theory is that if it works well they are just going to fully take over the crypto businesses and absorb them. If it does not then nothing lost. Wonder what everyone else is thinking.

Highly unlikely to happen! Because when organizations enter such kind of partnerships, there's usually a non-competitive clause included based on certain key performance indicators (KPI). If these KPIs are constantly met, the main organization simply can't exclude their partners and start their own operations. That's usually how such partnerships work.