American FinServ multinational corporation Visa recently released a proposal outlining how Ethereum users could set up automatic payments directly from their own, self-custodial wallets. It will be eliminating banks and other centralized entities from the equation.
A team of researchers and engineers across Visa is working to evaluate the foundations of various blockchains. The focus areas include security, scalability, interoperability, privacy, and use cases of different protocols.
Visa’s Head of Central Bank Digital Currencies and Protocols, Catherine Gu, emphasized that the company is focused on growing their “core competencies in Web3 infrastructure layers and blockchain protocols driving crypto development.” Gu added,
“If one of the major use cases of blockchain is for payments, then the basic requirement is that the blockchain has to function just as good as today, if not better.”
The Account Abstraction Tangent
The proposal further outlined how users can “pull” funds from their Ethereum crypto wallets, without the need to manually sign off every transaction. This means, with support from Visa, users can schedule auto-payments sent from self-custodial crypto wallets.
Also Read: Visa cuts ties with FTX: Global debit card program defunct?
Such capability is not yet possible on the Ethereum mainnet, but would be fostered by a proposal called “Account Abstraction.” As a result, it would allow Ethereum user accounts to work like smart contracts and feature pre-scheduled execution functions.
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s Co-Founder, put forth the said concept in 2015. The same authorizes Ethereum-based wallets and smart contracts to be combined into a single account. Further elaborating on the essence of AA, Gu tweeted,
Also Read: Here’s How Much Visa Earned Through Crypto Payments in its Fiscal Q1 2022
Venturing into the crypto auto-payment waters is a sign that the payments giant is prepping to become an active player in the space. Thus, it’d be worth watching if the same could further propel mainstream adoption.