Tech
After a 6-year hiatus, Stripe begins accepting cryptocurrency payments, starting with the stablecoin USDC
Stripe, the fintech giant, continues to re-enter the cryptocurrency market. The company announced on Thursday that it will allow customers to accept cryptocurrency payments, starting with just one currency in particular, the USDC stablecoins, initially only on Solana, Ethereum and Polygon. This will be the first time Stripe has accepted cryptocurrency payments since 2018, when it dropped support for Bitcoin because it was too unstable.
Stripe attempted its first re-entry into the cryptocurrency market in 2022 when it announced payments (but not payouts) in USDC, with Twitter as the service’s primary customer. Customer names are not attached to Thursday’s news bulletin.
Stripe co-founder and president John Collison will announce the news at the company’s Connect developer conference this week in San Francisco.
“Settlement agreements are no longer comparable to Christopher Nolan films in terms of length,” he said last Thursday. “And the transaction costs are no longer comparable to Christopher Nolan’s films in terms of budget. Stripe is bringing back cryptocurrency payments, this time with stablecoins, which are a much better experience.”
The company presented the details on Wednesday a long list of other launches, the most significant update is that Stripe, for the first time, would allow customers to integrate competing payment providers with Stripe’s other financial services tools. Thursday’s nod to expanding crypto support is also part of a broader strategy to open up its walled garden.
A brief history of Stripe’s interaction with cryptocurrencies highlights the difficult line Stripe has walked over the years when it comes to cryptocurrency. True to its disruptive roots as a fintech, the company wanted to be at the center of the debate on how blockchain-based technologies will impact financial services. But it runs the risk of subverting its larger business and positioning itself as a stable, sensible financial powerhouse if it dabbles too deeply or for too long in periods of instability. The company elaborated $1 trillion in transactions last year, and is still growing; currently worth it $65 billion on paper.
Stripe, doubling down on integrated finance, decouples payments from the rest of its stack
In 2014, Stripe was launched his early efforts in cryptocurrency with tests on Bitcoin, the first major cryptocurrency. “Stripe support is critical here because of the nature of Bitcoin: It doesn’t have all the qualities you normally expect from money,” one of its first testing partners said at the time.
By 2018, it attracted all that activity, saying it was too volatile and unstable. “Over the past two years, as block size limits have been reached, Bitcoin has evolved to become more suited to being an asset than a medium of exchange,” the company said in its announcement. “This led to Bitcoin becoming less useful for payments”.
Cue June 2019 e Facebook is passionate about cryptocurrencies. Stripe became a founding member of Libra.
But not for long! By October 2019, Stripe, along with others, has dropped support for Facebook’s efforts. “Stripe supports projects that aim to make online commerce more accessible to people around the world. Libra has this potential,” it was said at the time. “We will follow his progress closely and remain open to collaborating with the Libra Association at a later stage.”
It took another three years for the company to try cryptocurrencies again, moving to Twitter and stablecoin (USDC) payments with Twitter.
Given a longer look, it’s anyone’s guess whether Stripe will stay the course with this latest launch and what kind of timeline its efforts will take. From what we understand, however, he is already evaluating other stablecoins and platforms and sees an opportunity, at least for now.