Today, Crypto.com, the Hong Kong-based payment and cryptocurrency platform, announced a global partnership with Visa that also includes a core membership in Visa’s network in Australia. The company also plans to roll out fiat loans against bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as collateral through the Crypto.com Visa card.

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Launched in Singapore in November 2018, the Crypto.com Prepaid Visa card was one of the first bitcoin-linked cards on the market and is currently the largest Visa program of its kind, with 31 markets covered in Europe, as well as the UK. – United, Canada and United States, where it was launched in July 2019. Users can convert their crypto into any of the supported fiat currencies, such as US dollar, euro, British pound and others , pay with their card and withdraw money. wherever Visa is accepted.

With Visa Primary Membership, Crypto.com will begin issuing the Crypto.com Visa card directly in Australia and tailor the program to new markets. The company is currently shipping cards to Japan and Korea, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. Its ultimate goal is to make the services available everywhere outside of China. Card program offers up to 8% cashback on purchases with no upper limit, full discount on Spotify, Netflix

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“Visa credentials add a lot more utility to crypto assets and make it easier to spend them,” says Visa chief crypto Cuy Sheffield. The success of Crypto.com indicates “the demand we are seeing from consumers for access to crypto” through Visa’s network of 70 million merchants, Sheffield explains. The financial services company is currently in partnership with 35 different bitcoin and cryptocurrency platforms, including the largest crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase.

Crypto.com also announced the creation of “Spending Power,” a product that allows cardholders to lend and spend money against their crypto holdings in wallets registered on the platform. The interest rate will be set at 9.9%. As such, users won’t have to sell their bitcoin or other assets. The offering is the latest addition to a burgeoning crypto lending ecosystem with BlockFi, Celsius, and Nexo leading the wave.

Founded in 2016, Crypto.com currently has around 10 million users, double the number it had four months ago, across a variety of products and services, also including a cryptocurrency exchange and a DeFi wallet. The startup has yet to raise an institutional round, but the company is considering an IPO in 2023, Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek said.

According to Marszalek, the company’s revenue increased tenfold in 2020, although no specific figures were provided. “In terms of key business metrics such as verified users, monthly transaction users, and revenue, we estimate they are around one-fifth the size of Coinbase,” Marszalek said in an email. According to Coinbase S-1 deposit Submitted in February, the crypto exchange generated total revenue of $ 1.24 billion and 2.8 million monthly transaction users in 2020.

This week, Crypto.com announced the upcoming launch of its own NFT platform. “We are investing heavily in the NFT space because we see it as one of the main drivers” of the industry, says Marszalek.