Visa, the global payment giant, seems to be moving forward in the crypto industry once again after advancing into the space in 2020 but pausing in 2022 due to the high-profile collapses of some crypto companies, like exchange FTX.
The company is looking to hire software engineers to help develop new blockchain and stablecoin projects, Cuy Sheffield, the head of crypto at Visa, said on Twitter.
"We have an ambitious crypto product roadmap @Visa and just opened a few reqs for senior software engineers to help us drive mainstream adoption of public blockchain networks and stablecoin payments. Particularly interested in experience using Github Copilot and other AI assisted engineering tools to write and debug smart contracts."
A job posting that Visa published on Thursday, April 27, said the company is looking for software engineers who "have experience in building highly available & scalable backend systems and are passionate about the Web3 stack of technologies." According to the posting, Visa's crypto team "is building the next generation of products to facilitate commerce in everyone's digital and mobile lives," with a focus on creating "intuitive features that expose profound new value for our customers."
Sheffield's announcement drew some applause on Twitter with Jeremy Allaire, the CEO and co-founder of crypto trading platform Circle, posting, "Love seeing @Visa leaning into public blockchain networks and payment stablecoins."
Financial data aggregator Token Terminal posted in response to Sheffield's announcement, "the institutions are...here."
Some crypto experts have said that institutions entering the crypto space is the best path to driving mainstream adoption and building trust in the industry after the bear market of 2022. Michael Novogratz, the CEO of crypto investment firm Galaxy, said in a YouTube video posted in January that in light of the hits the crypto industry had taken over the last several months, the participation of retail organizations in the crypto space is a vital step toward helping institutions become comfortable enough to get more involved in crypto.
"Crypto needs the retail participants to come back to these communities, to buy in, to believe, to drive price, because that's what's going to get institutions back engaged," Novogratz said. "Institutions intellectually understand this business — blockchain versus Bitcoin versus Ethereum — they've done all their homework. They're gun-shy."
