Gnosis, an Ethereum sidechain, says a pair of new product offerings might allow consumers with crypto wallets to pay for online transactions using stablecoins and Visa’s payment system. According to a Gnosis news release, Gnosis Pay and Gnosis Card are the first decentralised payment network merging with a traditional payment processor and the first Visa-certified consumer debit card directly connected to an on-chain self-custodial wallet
.According to Gnosis, the Gnosis Card, which will employ the Visa payment system, will be a debit card directly tied to a user’s on-chain account and based on the Gnosis Pay decentralised payment network. Users’ wallets – in this example, Safe wallets – will function similarly to bank accounts, and each Gnosis Card will be linked to the user’s Safe account.
Gnosis Pay will also function as a layer 2 of the Gnosis chain, allowing for faster and cheaper transactions.
“From a user experience standpoint, it’s exactly the same experiences everyone’s used to, but under the hood of using crypto to settle your payments,” Stefan George, co-founder of Gnosis and chief technology officer of Gnosis Pay reiterated.
George came up with the idea for Gnosis Card while on a ski holiday in the French Alps with an executive from payment processor SaltPay. George was discussing how blockchain technology works and how it may be used in everyday life.
“The idea came that we should try to actually work together to kind of bridge the world between what they are doing and what we are doing. Ultimately, I think that’s the only way we can actually get more adoption for crypto,” George maintained. “We have to build bridges to the old world”
Gnosis broke off Safe as a distinct entity in July, but close ties between the two maintained, as seen by the inclusion of Safe wallets in Gnosis’ recent products.
“It’s a symbiotic relationship,” George said. “Safe is supporting Gnosis Pay through the development they’re doing on the smart contracts, which we are now leveraging for every single card that’s being shipped”.