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Mastercard: The crypto and NFT space have grown over the last decade, attracting many established companies across various industries.
As a result, many have delved into the space, building their own projects and tokens.
Mastercard is among the many to break into the NFT space.
However, the payment giant’s product lead for NFTs recently made his exit.
In a twist of events, he is also selling his resignation letter as an Ethereum NFT.
Resignation
Satvik Sethi, Mastercard’s product lead for NFTs, announced his resignation from the global payments and credit card company on Thursday.
On Twitter, he cited harassment and emotional distress as the cause of his resignation.
“For the past year, I served as the ‘NFT Product Lead,'” he wrote on a thread.
“I evangelized Web3 for Mastercard leadership & regional teams, as well as all our Fortune 500 clients & partners.”
“While I have a lot to be grateful for, when I moved from NYC to London because of visa issues, my salary was cut by 40% with my workload increasing 200%.”
“I had to work side jobs this past year to make ends meet, alongside all the things I was building and contributing in Web3.”
“At Mastercard, I was a victim of harassment & emotional distress caused by a series of mismanaged processes, communication, internal efficiency,” Sethi continued.
“There were months at a time when I wouldn’t receive my salary until I begged across the hierarchy for it, among many other issues.”
“Not just that, I was informed by HR despite my contract that I would have to serve a 3 month notice period so I wouldn’t resign.”
“Yet, when I resigned I was told I’ll only receive 1 month pay and no benefits, & pressured into accepting it quickly or threatened to lose my bonus.”
“When I tried to fight back and informed them that I had records of my conversations, they locked and disabled all my accounts, and with that preventing me from accessing ideas I spent months designing and not even giving me a chance to say goodbye to my team, clients, & peers.”
“They might try to discredit me or downplay my contributions. But the fact is – globally our partners, clients, and regional teams associate Mastercard x NFTs with me,” Sethi added.
“When anyone across our portfolio has a question on Web3 it would be directed to me, from the CMO to an analyst.”
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Blockchain ventures
In the last year, Mastercard has attempted to venture into the blockchain space.
During the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, the global payments and credit card company announced that it was tapping Polygon in an attempt to launch the Artist Accelerator.
It aims to provide the tools to allow creators and musicians to expand into Web3.
They would then be able to mint NFTs and make their online presence known.
An NFT is born
Following his resignation, Satvik Sethi continued to exercise his knowledge in Web3.
He transformed the resignation into an Ethereum NFT.
Dubbing it “New Beginnings,” the letter started making the rounds online.
As of this writing, it has been minted 69 times.
“If you want to support me, you can mint my resignation for 0.023 ETH. A piece of my personal history from the year I leaped,” Sethi tweeted.
“Art airdrop for holders in the future as thanks.”
Sethi’s journey
Sethi initially joined Mastercard in 2020.
He started on the global bill pay product development team, signing on as an analyst.
Sethi would later move to London, working as the product lead on NFTs.
If he quit Mastercard, he would lose his VISA and later be required to work out of India until finding an immigration solution.
According to a LinkedIn post, he plans to build his own company from scratch rather than join another firm.
