Financial infrastructure platform Stripe on Friday announced that platforms and marketplaces on Stripe can now instantly pay funds to their sellers, freelancers, content creators, and service providers using cryptocurrency. Initially, payouts will be available using USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.
Companies like Twitter which currently uses Stripe to pay creators can now offer creators the choice to receive payments in crypto. Twitter will use this feature to pay out earnings from Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows. This option will initially be offered to a small group of Twitter’s US creators.
Esther Crawford, product lead for creators at Twitter said, “Twitter is where people go to have conversations about what’s happening. We’re focused on helping creators who are driving those conversations earn money and connect with their audiences in new ways. We’re excited to begin offering crypto payouts to creators via Stripe so they have more choice in how they get paid.”
Over the past 10 years, Stripe has drastically simplified the experience of global payouts for platforms and online marketplaces. With Stripe Connect, businesses can programmatically pay out to people in more than 70 countries—in their local currency.
With the addition of crypto payouts, platforms using Connect can participate in the Web3 economy without having to acquire and store crypto themselves. Now, they can quickly pay out to their users in even more countries, and improve their services for those who prefer crypto over traditional fiat payment methods.
Stripe will initially support payouts in USDC to wallets compatible with the Polygon network. Later this year, Stripe will roll out support for additional cryptocurrencies and blockchain networks. Platforms and their end users can easily monitor and manage payouts—including crypto—in the Stripe Dashboard.
“Making commerce more global is one of the most powerful ways we’re going after our mission to increase the GDP of the internet. Because crypto protocols are global by default, they’re a natural vector for doing this. With crypto payouts, platforms using Stripe can send money to verified recipients nearly anywhere in the world, instantaneously,” said Will Gaybrick, chief product officer at Stripe.
