The present day WhatsApp announced the start of a pilot program in the United States with which users will be able to make money transfers with cryptocurrencies without the need to leave the platform.
The process will be carried out thanks to Novi, Meta’s digital wallet that was officially announced in 2019, and which apparently will also be the company’s digital wallet for the metaverse.
WhatsApp and cryptocurrencies
At the moment the pilot program with Novi integrated into WhatsApp only allows the use of Pax Dollars (USDP), a stable cryptocurrency linked to the US dollar, so there is currently no option to transfer bitcoins or any other popular cryptocurrency.
According to WhatsApp, to send payments with cryptocurrencies it will only be necessary to click on the payment option that appears along with other options in the app such as sending a photo or an attachment. Later you will only have to establish how much money you want to send and that’s it.
WhatsApp will not charge any type of fee for sending or receiving money, and there is also no transfer limit per day or per month.
In addition, Novi assures that the transfers will be instantly reflected in the digital wallets of each user.
WhatsApp has been experimenting with payments through the application for some time, in fact, in countries like Brazil payments have been working between users for a long time, although in this case the transfers are with the local currency, so this is the first time that the application experiences payments on the platform with cryptocurrencies.
Regarding expansion plans to other markets, WhatsApp has not mentioned when they could extend the pilot program to other markets, and they have not revealed whether in 2022 they will extend this function to more users in the United States.