Airswift Launches Gateway to Help Online Merchants Accept Crypto

Cryptocurrency payment solutions provider Airswift has launched a full-stack payment gateway for online businesses.

Airswift Connect integrates with merchants’ online stores to enable them to accept cryptocurrency worldwide, the company said Monday (Nov. 21) in an announcement emailed to PYMNTS.

“Airswift customers benefit from our proven track record of safely managing billion-dollar transaction volumes using our enterprise-level, Web 3.0 native financial infrastructure,” Airswift Co-founder and CEO Yan Zhang said in the announcement. “What’s more, Connect has a robust centralized fund management system that gives our customers an extra layer of financial protection.”

With Airswift Connect, online merchants can settle their digital currency assets to stablecoin or fiat daily, with lower transaction fees than they would have with credit card payments, according to the announcement.

The product is designed to be easy to integrate with a merchant’s website or app. It has a plugin for Shopify and WooCommerce that provides the quickest and simplest integration, plus an application programming interface (API) tool that enables merchants to customize their online checkout, the announcement stated.

PYMNTS research has found that nearly 80% of crypto consumers have used bitcoin to pay online or in-store.

In addition, 66% of consumers have used crypto-based debit cards or gift cards in-store, and 26% of consumers are “very” or “extremely” interested in using crypto when making purchases from merchants that offer rewards and discounts, according to “The U.S. Crypto Consumer: Cryptocurrency Use in Online and in-Store Purchases,” a PYMNTS and BitPay collaboration.

The report also found that 14% of high-income consumers said they “definitely” prefer merchants that accept cryptocurrency.

“Millennials and high-income consumers owning cryptocurrency are the most likely to switch to merchants that accept it as payment,” the study said, adding that more than one-quarter of high-income consumers said they are “very” or “extremely” likely to do so.

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