Stripe Brings Back Crypto Payments Via USDC Stablecoin

Six
years
after
dropping
support
for
bitcoin

(BTC)
and,
thus,
crypto
payments
altogether,
Stripe
is
bringing
back
the
service
later
this
summer,
though
initially
only
for
Circle’s
USDC
stablecoin.

“We’re
excited
to
announce
that
we’re
bringing
back
crypto
as
a
way
to
accept
payments,
but
this
time
with
a
much
better
experience,”
Stripe
co-founder
and
President
John
Collison
said
Thursday
in
a

keynote
address
at
the
company’s
Global
Internet
Economy
conference.

The
payments
processor
has
a
long
history
in
crypto,
first
tapping
the
bitcoin
ecosystem
in
2014.
Four
years
later,
in
2018,
it

discontinued
all
of
those
efforts,
arguing
that
bitcoin
was
too
volatile
and
would
function
as
an
asset
rather
than
a
medium
of
exchange.
It
had
also
criticized
its
lengthy
transaction
times
and
growing
fees
at
the
time.

That
year
saw
bitcoin’s
first
“crypto
winter”
with
the
token
dropping
from
a
high
of
$19,650
in
December
2017
to
$3,401
at
the
end
of
2018.

The
fintech
giant
took
a
step
toward
re-entering
the
market
the
following
year
by
becoming
a
co-founder
of
Facebook’s
Libra
project,
but
it
stepped
away
later
that
year
and
Libra
never
got
off
the
ground.
In
2022,
Stripe
introduced
a
project
to

facilitate
fiat-to-crypto
payments.

“Crypto
is
finding
real
utility,”
Collison
said
in
his
keynote
Thursday.
“With
transaction
speeds
increasing
and
costs
coming
down,
we’re
seeing
crypto
finally
making
sense
as
a
means
of
exchange.”

Payments
will
be
available
on
the
Solana

(SOL),
Ethereum

(ETH)
and
Polygon

(MATIC)
blockchains,
Stripe
said.

The
company
is
currently
valued
at
$65
billion,
according
to
Bloomberg,
and
is
one
of
the
biggest
payments
providers
in
the
world
with
over

$1
trillion
in
transactions
in
2023.