Trends
Stripe steps back into the cryptocurrency market
The financial infrastructure of the Internet Stripe declared on Thursday that it would enable users to accept payments in cryptocurrencies, albeit only for USDC stablecoins at first, and only on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon. Stripe will be accepting cryptocurrency payments for the first time since …
Headline
The financial infrastructure of the Internet Stripe declared on Thursday that it would enable users to accept payments in cryptocurrencies, albeit only for USDC stablecoins at first, and only on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon. Stripe will be accepting cryptocurrency payments for…
Context
The financial infrastructure of the Internet Stripe declared on Thursday that it would enable users to accept payments in cryptocurrencies , albeit only for USDC stablecoins at first, and only on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon. Stripe will be accepting cryptocurrency payments for the first time since it stopped supporting Bitcoin in 2018 because it was too unstable. Staying true to its disruptive fintech beginnings, Stripe has sought to lead the discourse on the implications of blockchain technology for the financial services industry. But if it dabbles too much or for too long in unstable times, it could undermine its larger business and reputation as a logical and stable financial powerhouse. With $1 trillion in transactions processed in the previous year, the company is still expanding and is currently valued at $65 billion on paper.
Evidence
Pending intelligence enrichment.
Analysis
Stripe began testing its first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, the first widely used cryptocurrency in 2014. One of Stripe’s early testing partners at the time stated, “Stripe’s support is crucial here due to the nature of Bitcoin: It doesn’t have all the qualities normally expected of money.” It stopped all of that activity in 2018 because it was deemed to be too unstable. The company stated in its announcement that “Bitcoin has evolved to become better suited to being an asset than being a means of exchange over the past year or two as block size limits have been reached. As a result, Bitcoin is now less valuable for making payments.” Facebook’s growing interest in cryptocurrencies in June 2019. Stripe joined Libra as one of its original members. However, Stripe and other companies had stopped supporting Facebook’s initiatives by October 2019. Stripe made a first attempt at reentering the cryptocurrency market in 2022 when it declared payouts in USDC, with Twitter serving as the service’s star client.
Key Points
- Stripe, the fintech firm, released on Thursday that it continues to inch its way back into the cryptocurrency market. This will be the first time that Stripe has taken crypto payments since 2018.
- A brief timeline of Stripe’s with crypto underscores the tricky line that Stripe has walked over the years when it comes to cryptocurrency.
- Stripe would let customers integrate competing payment providers with Stripe’s other financial services tooling.
Actions
Pending intelligence enrichment.
