Solana Pay Links Up with Shopify, Enabling USDC Payments via Plugin

Solana Pay's seamless integration with Shopify introduces fee-efficient USDC payments, reshaping e-commerce with crypto convenience

Published: Aug 24, 2023 11:22:42 PM IST

Solana Pay Links Up with Shopify, Enabling USDC Payments via Plugin Image: Shutterstock

Solana Pay, the decentralised payment protocol developed by Solana Labs, has seamlessly integrated its plugin with Shopify, introducing a new payment avenue for millions of businesses on the Shopify platform. This integration empowers merchants to utilise Solana Pay for processing payments, allowing them to accept crypto transactions.

Solana Pay, established in February 2022 on the Solana layer-1 blockchain, initiates its integration with USDC, the second-largest stablecoin, sporting a market cap of $25.9 billion. While initially opting for USDC due to its stability and familiarity, the protocol remains open to incorporating other cryptos, such as SOL and BONK, in the future.

Shopify, a major player in the e-commerce arena, commands 10% of U.S. e-commerce and an impressive $444 billion global economic activity share. Solana Pay boasts an active user base of over 11.5 million accounts and has garnered attention from crypto giants like Circle and Phantom and payment processors like Checkout.com and Citcon.

The appeal of Solana Pay lies in its fee efficiency. While credit card processing often incurs charges ranging from 1.5% to 3.5% per transaction, utilising Solana Pay comes close to being "fee-free," with the average transaction cost on Solana's blockchain amounting to a mere $0.00025.

The collaboration also paves the way for easily setting up merchant loyalty programs, offering rewards like NFT loyalty tokens to incentivise customer engagement. Solana-centric crypto wallets integrated with Solana Pay, such as Phantom, Solflare, and Glow, can effortlessly connect to the plugin.

Shopify's exploration of crypto payment options began earlier, with the platform already supporting integration with various payment gateways like Coinbase Commerce, Strike, Crypto.com, and BitPay.

In the broader context, Solana Labs envisions its blockchain as a natural fit for payments, citing its absence of intermediaries, bank fees, chargebacks, and delays. With Solana Pay's integration into Shopify, the horizon broadens for web3 commerce experiences, offering a glimpse into the potential of blockchain-enabled transactions for merchants and consumers alike.

Shashank is the founder of yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash

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