Stripe to go live with USDC stablecoin payments this summer
US-based fintech Stripe is to introduce stablecoin payments as a checkout payment option this year in a renewed show of support for cryptocurrencies.
Stripe to include USDC stablecoins at checkout
The functionality debut will enable checkout customers to transact in USDC stablecoins, issued by Circle, with options to toggle wallets between the Solana, Ethereum and Polygon networks initially.
Writing via X, John Collison, who co-founded Stripe in 2010, says “transactions instantly settle on-chain and automatically convert to fiat”, with the development expected to go live “this summer”.
The news, which was confirmed during the Stripe Sessions conference held at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco this week, is indicative of the financial infrastructure platform’s slow but steady return to the novel realms of digital currency.
Stripe first began to dabble in the technology back in 2014, when it first announced trials between Bitcoin and automated clearing house (ACH) payments. However, the endeavour was short-lived when the fintech pulled its support for the project on 23 April 2018, with value volatility and transaction tardiness cited as leading catalysts of its decision.
Despite this, it returned to the topic again four years later, when it launched a new functionality enabling USDC payouts through its Connect platform. However, the service was not extended to its account-to-account payment functions.
The fintech followed this by unveiling an embeddable fiat-to-crypto onramp in 2023, as a means to enable Web3 companies to install a crypto-purchasing widget into their offering.
The continued ascent of Stripe’s digital currency agenda and stablecoin payment offerings, particularly considering its processing of $1 trillion in total payments last year, signifies a new turn in a technology that has recently fallen subject to several considerable blows.
This includes SoFi’s decision to snuff out its cryptocurrency services in December, followed by Oklahoma-based Vast Bank pulling the plug on its cryptocurrency mobile banking app in February.
