Binance Opens Payments System to US Customers

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has opened its payments system Binance Pay to its American customers.

The feature, which lets users send money via mobile app, has been available to Binance users outside the U.S. since last year.

“Pay eliminates the complexities of transferring crypto to contacts as users no longer need to enter a complex deposit or withdrawal address, pay gas fees, or wait an unspecified amount of time for transactions to successfully settle,” Binance said in a Tuesday (Dec. 13) news release.

Binance Pay lets users send, request and receive nearly 150 different cryptocurrencies from other users, allowing for instant, no-cost crypto transfers, according to the release.

Biannce, the largest crypto exchange in the world, recently did away with trading fees for both bitcoin and ethereum to attract more users during a time when crypto trading volume is low, the release stated.

Binance founder and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has called payments one of the “most obvious use cases for crypto,” according to the release.

Earlier this year, PYMNTS spoke with a trio of eCommerce and crypto executives about the promise and challenge of crypto payments.

Among them was Steve Ashley, president and chief operating officer of SHOP.COM, who said his company was confident customers would embrace the use of crypto at checkout when it began offering that service last year.

Customers had been telling the platform they wanted it to accept cryptocurrencies “because they believed in it as an ecosystem for the next form of currency,” Ashley told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in August.

The same was true for new customers, said Ashley, who added that the company’s executives had been longtime crypto holders.

“It just made sense to reach out to the communities because this could bring a new demographic of users to SHOP.COM.”

However, there were some headwinds facing companies, such as getting people, especially ones in older demographics, to see the simplicity of paying with crypto.

“There’s just a fear of the unknown when it comes to crypto, and you’ve got to eliminate that,” Ashley said.

PYMNTS research into consumer crypto use showed that 28% of consumers had a positive view of crypto as a payment method. However, that number climbed to 32% among high-income consumers and 48% among millennials.

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