Stripe U-Turns On Crypto Payments With USDC Integration, Six Years After Dropping Bitcoin

Updated: 26 April 2024

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Stripe is reintroducing crypto payments by enabling transactions with USD Coin (USDC), six years after dropping support for Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital currencies.

“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,” the company’s co-founder and President John Collison said during an April 25 keynote address. “Crypto is finding real utility.”

Crypto Starting To Demonstrate Utility

With reduced transaction times and lowering transaction fees, Collison says “crypto is finally making sense as a means of exchange.”

Users will be able to execute payments with USDC on either Solana (SOL), Ethereum (ETH) or Polygon (MATIC).

Crypto is back. @Stripe will start supporting global stablecoin payments this summer. Transactions instantly settle on-chain and automatically convert to fiat. Join the waitlist https://t.co/hws2OsU3Id and watch the demo (h/t @Solana) from Sessions. pic.twitter.com/zGKYW2FM6i

— John Collison (@collision) April 25, 2024

The announcement had little impact on the prices of each blockchain’s native crypto.

Only MATIC managed to print a more than 2% gain to trade at $0.7193 as of 4:00 a.m. EST, according to CoinMarketCap data. Leading altcoin ETH recorded a minor loss during the same period, while Solana dropped more than 1%.

Stripe Has A Long History In The Crypto Space

Stripe’s long history in the crypto space began back in 2014, when the payment processor first started exploring integration with the Bitcoin ecosystem. It then discontinued its support for the leading crypto in 2018, arguing that BTC was too volatile.

Stripe also highlighted the growing fees on the Bitcoin network and criticized its transaction times. This came amid the first “crypto winter,” as the BTC price plummeted from a high of $19,650 in December 2017 to $3,401 at the end of 2018.

In an effort to re-enter the market, Stripe took a step forward the following year by becoming a co-founder of Facebook’s Libra project. Not long thereafter, the fintech giant left the project, which failed to gain the necessary traction.