Solana Labs COO Applauds Visa Pilot as Significant Advance in Digital Payments
Claude Pascal
Raj Gokal, the COO and co-founder of Solana Labs, has praised Visa's decision to expand its USDC pilot program to include the Solana blockchain, stating that it represents a significant stride toward enhancing global accessibility to digital payments.
Gokal emphasized the significance of this collaboration, envisioning it as a pivotal moment propelling digital payments innovation into its next phase for users across the globe. He acknowledged Visa as one of the most reputable global brands in the payments sector and commended their foray into the realm of cryptocurrencies, leveraging newly constructed and verified infrastructure that bolsters confidence in the cryptocurrency market.
Visa recently revealed its extension of stablecoin settlement capabilities to encompass the Solana blockchain. Notably, this pilot program had been operational on the Ethereum blockchain before its expansion, and Visa had collaborated with merchant acquirers Worldpay and Nuvei for pilot initiatives.
Highlighting Solana's impressive transaction throughput, Gokal emphasized its suitability for stablecoins, particularly due to its capacity to handle a substantial volume of transactions per second. He expressed a vision for Solana to be an economically advantageous choice for Visa, offering cost savings compared to its in-house infrastructure, while also delivering a notably improved user experience due to its speed.
Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana's co-founder and Solana Labs CEO, echoed these sentiments on X (formerly Twitter), emphasizing Solana's cost-efficiency and rapid transaction processing capabilities.
Jeremy Allaire, the co-founder and CEO of Circle, also chimed in on X, highlighting Visa's advantages over Swift as a real-time payments network. He noted that the pilot's expansion underscores that USDC holds utility not only for retail users but also for wholesale applications.