Global e-commerce giant Shopify is rolling out early access to stablecoin payments in Circle’s USDC in collaboration with major US exchange Coinbase.
Shopify plans to fully roll out USDC (USDC) payments on Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 (L2) network Base via Shopify Payments and Shop Pay later this year, the company announced on Thursday.
“We think that stablecoins are a natural way to transact on the internet and worked with Coinbase to develop the commerce payment protocol smart contract that powers this work,” Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke said in an X post on Thursday.
The new stablecoin payment feature by Shopify will also allow the company to offer buyer incentives like 1% cash back in local currency payouts in the future, the CEO noted.
Shopify taps Base for payments
Coinbase’s Base blockchain is the fourth-largest network for USDC, with Base-issued USDC accounting for 6% of the stablecoin’s total supply of $61 billion, according to data from USDC Transparency and CoinGecko.
Built by Coinbase, Base is an “ultra-fast and affordable network that has emerged as a great way for moving money,” Shopify said. The company also mentioned that Base offers “fast, cheap, and secure transactions” while providing a 24/7 global payment rail.
Since Shopify did not mention whether the company expects to consider the native support of more USDC chains or just some additional crypto assets and stablecoins, many online commentators were curious about the choice of Base.
Related: Big Techs consider adopting stablecoins as GENIUS Act debate continues
“What’s the point of narrowing your top of the funnel? You should support all chains that stripe via USDC supports,” one user wrote on X.
Indirect Bitcoin support in place since 2013
Shopify’s new USDC partnership with Coinbase is not its first endeavor into crypto.
Shopify has been indirectly supporting Bitcoin (BTC) payments through gateway integrations since at least 2013, when the company officially announced that all of its 75,000 merchants were free to start accepting Bitcoin.
According to Shopify Help Center, Shopify allows merchants to integrate at least nine additional payment methods featuring a wide variety of supported crypto assets, through integrations with third-party gateways like BitPay, Solana Pay and more.
“Due to longer settlement times, cryptocurrency transactions can cause overselling in flash sales. Use a direct payment method like Shopify Payments for the best flash sale performance,” the help center’s message notes.
The latest partnership between Shopify and Coinbase is not the first collaboration between the two companies using digital currency.
In 2019 and 2020, Coinbase and Shopify joined Meta’s (formerly Facebook’s) stablecoin project Diem, initially known as Libra. Following years of pushback from global regulators, the project was officially shut down in early 2022.
Magazine: Coinbase and Base: Is crypto just becoming traditional finance 2.0?
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