Merchant’s suffered when Stripe recently decided to pull out their support for taking Bitcoin in e-commerce transactions. And now, Coinbase has come in to offer online retailers a means to accept cryptocurrencies.
The famed payment service provider Stripe made public their plans to terminate Bitcoin support last month. And the crypto exchange expert Coinbase is now stepping up to fill the gap by providing a new option for web-based merchants.
Coinbase Commerce is best known for converting fiat into Ethereum, Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash or Litecoin. The company is currently valued at a whopping $1.6 billion, up from last year’s $100 million. According to Recode’s report, the company made over $1 billion (in revenue) last year and claimed to have offered services to over 10 million users. And this year, it is looking to provide retailers with a payment collection option for crypto.
Coinbase launched this new service a few weeks. Now, all you need is the best merchant account for e-commerce from a provider like firstamericanmerchant.com; then you can directly add the crypto option to your existing payment plans or include it as a separate alternative. Unlike in past merchant solutions, Coinbase is hosting separately from the exchange’s services which means a retailer can receive crypto in their wallet.
What’s more, their services extend worldwide, and not only in the United States. First to enjoy the services was Shopify— the e-commerce hosting platform that hosts over half a million merchants worldwide.
On the other hand, Coinbase has to consider the merchant regarding the cost of transactions. That’s why they are coming up with a new solution to reduce transactions fees and speed up operations. However, merchants still fear the prices may go up.
Then there’s also the issue of where crypto holders will spend or use their digital currency and not merely keeping it while hoping its value increases.
The bottom line
The mere presence of a channel that accepts cryptocurrency impacts only a small percentage of e-commerce business owners. The truth is there is still low demand among consumers.