Keeping current with Crypto: Cuy Sheffield

Cuy Sheffield is guiding Visa’s journey into the realm of crypto.

Sheffield joined the card network’s merchant partnership division in 2015, after Visa bought the the California-based commerce firm TrialPay (now known as Visa Commerce Solutions) for an undisclosed amount. He spent four years in that role before being tapped to lead the global crypto product team at Visa in June 2019.

Last September, Sheffield led the expansion of Visa’s stablecoin settlement offerings for merchant acquirers by adding settlement support for Circle’s USDC stablecoin at Worldpay and Nuvei. The partnerships leverage the Solana digital ledger and Visa’s account with Circle to send settlement payouts in USDC to the two acquirers, which then direct the payments to merchant clients — all with the aim of improving the speed of cross-border settlements.

“The types of merchants that are interested in it today are already in the crypto sector, such as a crypto exchange or an NFT marketplace,” Sheffield previously told American Banker. “But as more merchants understand how these new methods work, there may be interest from other kinds of companies that may find it easier to use a blockchain or a stablecoin instead of international wires, Swift and correspondent banks.”

Continuing to meet this demand has prompted Sheffield and his team to conduct research on the development and use cases of various ledgers. Topics include identifying privacy-enhancing technology, reducing transaction costs through digital ledgers and more.

Beyond Visa, Sheffield is also a co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cryptocurrencies and a member of the advisory group for the Digital Dollar Project.