Payments giant Stripe has launched support for cryptoassets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), while crypto exchange FTX and its US arm also signed with Stripe for payments and know-your-customer (KYC) services.
Stripe co-founder John Collison announced that:
“Stripe now supports crypto businesses: exchanges, on-ramps, wallets, and NFT marketplaces. Not just pay-ins but payouts, KYC and identity verification, fraud prevention, and lots more.”
Per the linked crypto page of the company’s website, Stripe decided to offer a suite of products, enabling businesses to use it as a payment method for crypto and NFT transactions, as well as a way to onboard Web3 users.
It claims that its users can scale marketplaces and onboard buyers and sellers “within seconds for any kind of [NFT] marketplace,” as well as verify the authenticity of ID documents from more than 33 countries.
The company further notes fast launches of first NFT or crypto projects for businesses if they wish to do so, as well as stablecoin payouts.
They further offer fiat payment application programming interface (APIs), claiming that the payments platform is “designed to increase conversion and reduce fraud at every step of the payment flow.”
For wallet and decentralized finance (DeFi) product builders, the site says they offer Stripe’s banking-as-a-service APIs, Treasury, and Issuing.
According to the site, users in more than 180 countries are allowed to deposit funds via “dozens” of local payment methods, and in more than 135 currencies.
Stripe’s crypto feature availability for businesses in the space varies by region and use case, says the support page, and “depending on how your business is set up,” the company “may require additional information before you can start processing payments with Stripe.”
The services are currently available in the US, the UK, and the EU, while certain NFT sales are available in Japan as well.
The company further quoted FTX US President Brett Harrison as stating that:
“We’ve recently overhauled our user onboarding process, and we’ve partnered with Stripe to bring its automated ID verification system to FTX. We’re seeing greatly increased speed of KYC processing, higher rates of automated approvals, and a smoother UX [user experience] for our customers.”
Other companies listed on the website, suggesting established deals, are Blockchain.com, Nifty Gateway, and Just Mining.
While the company first enabled bitcoin (BTC) payments back 2014, in 2018 they stopped it, stating that it became “less useful for payments” in the prior couple of years, listing block size limits, long confirmation times, and higher fees among the reasons.
Then in October last year, Stripe started looking to hire a team of engineers for its crypto operations, in what some suggested could be a strong move for the crypto sector.
On March 10 this year, their 2018 post has been updated, now stating:
“Since the original publication of this blog post, more than four years ago, we’ve learned that our optimism for the future of crypto was not unfounded. From new developments in blockchain infrastructure to widespread interest from major financial institutions, crypto is going mainstream.”
Source: Cryptonews
