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Visa is in the eye of a storm, as it was recently revealed that the United States Department of Justice is investigating the company because it may have engaged in illegal anti-competitive practices. The allegations include relationships with some of his customers such as Stripe, Square, and PayPal.

news was special published By the Wall Street Journal portal, this October 27, releasing some details about the investigation.

According to the portal’s note, the investigation is based on the fact that Visa had agreed with these three companies, which are known to process a large number of payments, to collect commission for the use of their cards within the platform. can be reduced. However, it appears that Visa paid these companies, which is unclear.

In this sense, the Justice Department, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, would like to confirm Visa does not encourage its customers to operate within its payment network by offering monetary compensationwhich would be considered unfair and anti-competitive behaviour.

Although Square and Stripe – companies that have opened their platforms to the use of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as means of payment – ​​are under investigation, It seems that they are not in the eyes of the regulators. This is because the investigation, for now, will only focus on Visa.

United States and antitrust law

The United States, throughout history, has been one of the countries with the largest number of laws against economic monopolies, requiring that no single company or corporation have any form of competitor in its territory.

One of the oldest laws in the region dates back to 1890. Le Sherman Antitrust (antitrust), which establishes that a monopoly is restrictive to the proper functioning of the country’s economy. This law saw the dissolution of Standard Oil, a company owned by John D. Rockefeller, in 1911.

One of the most recent antitrust moves by American politics occurred last June, when some legislators in the United States House of Representatives, Agreed on a total of five bills To prevent the monopoly of big technology companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple.

Visa and its relation to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies

Over the past few years, Visa, one of the giants in processing payments via credit and debit cards, has established a position in favor of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Last May, according to a News The company’s CEO, Al Kelly, collected by Cryptonoticious, commented that the purchase volume of crypto assets using Visa cards has increased.

it can A sign that the use of Visa has, in a way, led to the adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Although Visa allows you to buy cryptocurrency with your card, the company is working with large crypto companies such as Crypto.com, Coinbase, and Coinbase. Binance, with which it has launched 100% supported debit cards with cryptocurrencies.

On the other hand, according to some reportsVisa is preparing to launch its own blockchain tool, which allows the interconnection between multiple blockchains for the exchange of stable coins and CBDC.