As the crypto market continues its path to mainstream and institutional adoption, some significant milestones are being hit, and are just over the horizon.

From diminishing rates of wash trading among crypto exchanges, the launch of physically-delivered Bitcoin futures, and the rise of user-friendly DeFi products, crypto’s trajectory toward market maturity is rapidly gaining momentum. And the ultimate goal remains mainstream adoption.

For CoinZoom, an emerging institutional-grade crypto exchange from the founders of forex giant, Interbank FX, the vision of widespread access to crypto is coupled with one of its flagship products — VISA cards.

“We are extremely pleased to work with Visa as we launch CoinZoom,” detailed CoinZoom CEO, Todd Crosland, in the press release announcing the card program in August. “Visa’s dominance as a global leader in digital payments is a tremendous asset as CoinZoom begins to reshape the global cryptocurrency marketplace.”

Set for rollout this quarter, CoinZoom’s Visa card program empowers its exchange users to directly access both their crypto and fiat wallets from their accounts and spend them at over 53 million merchants worldwide. A US-regulated Money Services Business with FinCEN and Money Transmitter, CoinZoom’s vision also extends beyond their card program and into filling the void of what retail and institutions seek — a fiat-crypto gateway with pooled global liquidity and a high-performance trading engine.

Onboarding The Mainstream to Crypto

Cryptocurrencies have a usability problem. As a product of their underlying complexity and esoteric existence, including aspects like private key management and gas fees on Ethereum, cryptocurrencies present a considerable barrier for mainstream users to understand.

The tipping point of cryptocurrency adoption is largely viewed through two primary prisms: the use of crypto for retail payments and overcoming the UX problem.

Retail cryptocurrency use has gained steam in recent months, with the likes of Lolli, Bitrefill, and other retail-crypto services partnering directly with retailers to offer e-commerce and other online payments directly in crypto. However, such partnerships require forming relationships with retailers, something that CoinZoom understood as a major obstacle, and one that working with Visa circumvents entirely.

And as a regulated digital currency exchange in multiple regions of the world, including Australia, Ireland, and the US, CoinZoom can offer account funding via several global railways such as Visa, and Mastercard, ACH, and wires.

Along with the real-time crypto-fiat conversions on CoinZoom using the Visa card, the exchange is offering multiple rewards programs. Select, Preferred, Gold, Platinum, and Black Visa rewards cards are all at the fingertips of users, which include Visa 24/7 support and common rewards cashback options.

Considering that global access to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is one of their weakest assurances, pushes by CoinZoom promise to expand ease of access to numerous regions, encompassing millions of people, all within regulatory compliance.

Users can simply spend crypto balances through their CoinZoom Visa cards online and at compatible point-of-sale devices anywhere that Visa is accepted, including all global ATMs that accept Visa and Matercard, all without having to go through the cumbersome process of exchanging crypto for fiat then sending the money to a pre-funded debit card (i.e., BitPay) — prohibitive points of friction for many users. It’s no secret that users want integrated interfaces either. The ability to tap into a high-performance exchange, debit cards, and other features like an OTC trading desk and margin trading (coming soon), all under one umbrella, will attract swaths of users tired of exchanges in the US who have tarried behind in the innovation of more comprehensive exchange offerings.

The race towards crypto adoption is becoming more competitive by the minute, but projects and exchanges that cater to both institutional and retail requests are positioned optimally to capture the most significant portions of mainstream users. CoinZoom’s Visa rollout is just a single feature of its diverse offering but is one that clearly gives it an advantage over crypto-retail competitors and exchanges alike.

Coupled with a resurgent Bitcoin market, Q4 2019 is shaping up to be a pivotal period in the archives of cryptocurrency’s evolution.