Stripe Resumes Crypto Payments with USDC After Six-Year Pause

On Wednesday, Stripe, a global leader in payments technology, followed through on its earlier promise from April to reintroduce cryptocurrency support, a move that comes six years after the company stopped accepting Bitcoin payments.

Based in San Francisco, Stripe has now launched a new feature enabling businesses to accept USD Coin (USDC) from customers across more than 150 countries. Jeff Weinstein, Stripe’s product lead, shared the news on Twitter (X), saying, “Crypto on Stripe is officially back!” He also mentioned that the service is being rolled out to hundreds of thousands of U.S. businesses immediately.

Expansion to additional countries is expected soon, though further details on timing have yet to be confirmed. Decrypt has reached out to Stripe for additional clarification.

Back in April, Stripe announced plans to initially support USDC payments via Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon networks, setting the stage for this broader rollout.

This move puts Stripe in line with competitor PayPal, which introduced cryptocurrency payment options in 2021. PayPal allows users to make purchases at millions of merchants worldwide using its “Checkout With Crypto” feature.

Like PayPal, Stripe’s new offering aims to make crypto transactions easier for businesses by automatically converting USDC payments into traditional currency and settling them through the merchant’s Stripe account.

The new “Pay with Crypto” option is accessible to businesses using Stripe Checkout, Elements, or the Payment Intents API.

There are limits, with payments capped at $10,000 per transaction and $100,000 per month. A 1.5% transaction fee applies, according to Stripe’s product page.

Stripe initially supported Bitcoin payments starting in 2014 but discontinued them in 2018, citing issues such as price volatility, slow transaction processing times, and high fees. Now, with the introduction of USDC and stablecoin payments, Stripe is once again engaging with the crypto space.

Additionally, Stripe has integrated with the Avalanche network, enabling users to interact with specialized crypto products and NFT platforms built on that blockchain.

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