Financial services giant Mastercard has signaled its entry into the metaverse by filing 15 trademarks applications related to non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
According to one trademark application filed with the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office, Mastercard intends to provide virtual payments in the metaverse, “and other virtual worlds.” In addition to a virtual version of its core services, further applications revealed Mastercard’s ambition to also host its customers in these virtual environments.
For instance, with trademark application #97346029, Mastercard seeks to provide “virtual environments in which users can interact for recreational, educational, networking, shopping, leisure or entertainment purposes,” in addition to, ”creating and hosting an on-line community for digital assets, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), metaverses and virtual worlds.”
Mastercard to create “online marketplace”
With the creation of these virtual spaces, Mastercard also wants to create an “online marketplace for buyers and sellers of downloadable digital goods and media authenticated by non-fungible tokens (NFTs),” according to trademark application #97346112.
A comprehensive list of metaverse and NFT-related trademark applications filed by Mastercard was shared in a tweet by USPTO trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis. They also include trademarks for the Mastercard brand name, its “Priceless” tagline, and iconic circles logo in the virtual space.
Earlier this year, Mastercard teamed up with US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to facilitate the purchasing of NFTs.
Payments in the metaverse
Mastercard is not alone among major payment service providers in entering the crypto sphere through related patent filings. As early as 2020, Visa filed a patent application to create a digital currency and has recently been developing a native digital currency on its card networks. The rival payments giant announced its intentions to launch a global crypto advisory service earlier this year.
Meanwhile, American Express has submitted some seven applications related to establishing a presence in the metaverse. These included branding with virtual payment cards, concierge services in virtual environments as well as enabling payments at NFT marketplaces.