Payment Giant Stripe Changes Mind, Will Now Accept Crypto

Leading payments provider Stripe announced on Thursday renewed support for cryptocurrencies in a surprising turnaround after abandoning support for digital assets, particularly Bitcoin, in 2018.

Stripe co-founder John Collison made the announcement in a tweet on Thursday.

Stripe Announces Product Suite for API, Tools Access to Buy, Hold Crypto, Trade NFTs

The company is now offering a suite of products to provide customers access to application programming interfaces (APIs) and tools that would allow easier purchase and storage of crypto tokens, make cashouts, trade non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and manage compliance workflows, such as Know Your Customer (KYC).

According to Stripe's support page, the company's offerings can make it possible for users to purchase over 135 cryptocurrencies with fiat currencies in 180 countries.

In 2018, when Stripe ended support for Bitcoin, the company called the top cryptocurrency "less useful" as a payment option four years after accepting it. However, in October last year, Stripe started to post job openings for a crypto team, while adding the crypto venture capitalist Matt Huang to its board of directors.

Stripe's renewal of support for crypto is seen as a major threat to other crypto payments providers that don't have the San Francisco-based giant's extensive reach.

Collison likewise shared a link to a page that further explains Stripe's Web3 use cases. The page showed that Stripe will allow platforms to process payments in worldwide fiat currencies smoothly and even pay out fiat in 45 countries. As for digital wallets, Stripe offers a state-of-the-art API that lets users monitor and handle their Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bored Apes assets through nifty widgets. Lastly, for NFT marketplaces, Stripe can leverage the company's Identity feature to immediately verify identification documents' authenticity in 33 countries to scrutinize buyers and sellers.

Stripe Vows Protection Against Crypto Fraud

These features seek to address the crypto market's biggest concern: the risk of fraud. As the crypto market has since gone mainstream, scammers have proliferated to benefit from the understandable confusion and gullibility in the burgeoning space. Unfortunately, many of these crypto criminals have succeeded, pocketing a total of $14 billion from their illicit activities in 2021. Losses from these crypto theft and scams have grown 79 percent from 2020.

But for Stripe's suite of crypto products, the company assures "fraud prevention" with built-in "authorization optimization."

Stripe's clients now include Blockchain.com, Nifty Gateway, Just Mining, and the crypto exchange FTX, which seeks to enhance its identity compliance features and fiat onboarding workflows for users with the new partnership.

The company had since trailed behind such payments leaders as Block (formerly Square) and PayPal in embracing crypto. Block, which is led by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, had provided such crypto capabilities for years. PayPal and subsidiary Venmo had offered crypto buying, selling, and holding since early 2021. PayPal is even looking at offering its own stablecoin.

Stripe has recently topped a list of Most Innovative Companies by business news outlet Fast Company for its Stripe Climate Initiative, which allows businesses to allot a percentage of digital sales to carbon removal initiatives.