KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Mastercard expands its Crypto Credential to self-custody wallets, using Polygon to enhance transaction simplicity and security.
- Polygon’s recent upgrades improve network capabilities, supporting high-speed, reliable transactions for global payments.
- Mercuryo handles KYC onboarding, ensuring verified, user-friendly wallet aliases replace complex addresses.
- This initiative marks a significant step towards integrating traditional payment simplicity with cryptocurrency self-custody.
Mastercard is expanding its Mastercard Crypto Credential to self-custody wallets, selecting Polygon as the first blockchain network to support this rollout. The initiative, in collaboration with Mercuryo, aims to simplify cryptocurrency transactions by introducing verified, username-based transfers. This system replaces complex wallet addresses with simple aliases, enhancing user experience.
The expansion introduces a trusted verification layer directly to self-custody, allowing users to send and receive assets while maintaining full control over their wallets. This development is a significant step towards making self-custody more intuitive and secure, paving the way for global-scale payments.
Mastercard Crypto Credential replaces complex addresses with verified usernames, which are human-readable identifiers that map to a user’s wallet. Mercuryo is responsible for the Know Your Customer (KYC) onboarding and issuance, ensuring that each alias corresponds to a real, verified individual.
Once verified, users can enjoy a user-controlled wallet with a trusted, portable verification layer, without sacrificing custody, privacy, or flexibility. This represents a user experience breakthrough, combining the simplicity of traditional payments with the self-custody of cryptocurrency.
Polygon’s Role in the Expansion
Polygon’s recent upgrades, including the Rio upgrade and Heimdall v2 consensus upgrade, have enhanced the network’s capabilities. These improvements eliminate the risk of reorgs, introduce stateless validation, and lower node costs, making it easier to build on Polygon. With a throughput of 5,000 transactions per second (TPS) expected soon, Polygon achieves near-instant finality, offering faster settlement times than traditional payment systems.
Billions in stablecoins already move across Polygon monthly, with neobanks, fintechs, and enterprise payment providers relying on the network for its speed and reliability. The integration of Mastercard Crypto Credential into self-custody workflows is a natural extension of this momentum.
Implications for Global Payments
For institutions, reliability is a key differentiator. Polygon’s architecture ensures that transfers are final, fast, and cost-efficient, enabling credential verification flows to scale globally. Mastercard’s expansion onto Polygon signals a broader trend of global payments infrastructure moving on-chain, with Polygon leading the charge.
As the demand for credential verification flows, high-frequency transfers, user onboarding, remittances, merchant payouts, and agentic payments grows, networks like Polygon are essential. They provide the speed, reliability, and real-world integrations needed to support global users.
For more information, you can read the full announcement here.
Why This Matters: Impact, Industry Trends & Expert Insights
Mastercard is expanding its Crypto Credential to self-custody wallets, using Polygon as the first supported blockchain. This move aims to simplify cryptocurrency transactions by using verified usernames instead of complex wallet addresses.
Recent industry reports indicate a strong trend towards self-custody solutions, with 68% of crypto transactions now being self-custodial. This aligns with Mastercard’s initiative to enhance user experience and security in self-custody wallets, potentially accelerating the adoption of decentralized financial solutions.
As per insights from a Ainvest report, Mastercard’s integration with Polygon is seen as a significant step in making crypto payments more accessible and secure. This supports the potential for broader adoption and trust in crypto transactions, reinforcing Mastercard’s role in the evolving payment ecosystem.
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