Coinbase Brings Stablecoins to eCommerce With Coinbase Payments

Coinbase has launched a stablecoin payments stack developed for eCommerce platforms.

Coinbase Payments, announced Wednesday (June 18) and already live with Shopify, is designed to help payment service providers (PSPs), marketplaces and eCommerce infrastructure providers to bring stablecoin payments to market more quickly.

“More than half of the Fortune 500 is building onchain, and a third of small businesses already use crypto,” the company wrote on its blog.

“And yet, despite growing demand, stablecoin payments remain out of reach for most platforms — held back by fragmented tooling, technical overhead, and a lack of production-ready infrastructure. Coinbase Payments changes that.”

According to the blog post Coinbase Payments is the first full-stack stablecoin payment solution created for eCommerce platforms at scale. The company said it “abstracts away the blockchain” so businesses can offer crypto-native payments with no need for crypto-native teams. The offering was created to power “seamless USDC payments with faster settlement, lower fees, and global reach,” the company added.

The announcement comes days after Shopify said it would begin allowing merchants to accept USDC stablecoins within their payment and order fulfillment flows, thanks to a collaboration between its platform, Coinbase and Stripe.

“By embracing stablecoins, merchants aren’t just adopting a new payment method, they’re tapping into global markets, opening the door to global customers, and joining the future of borderless, accessible commerce,” Shopify wrote on its blog.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote last week about the use of stablecoins by eCommerce platforms in the wake of news that Amazon and Walmart were considering using these digital tokens.

“The web woven between platforms, businesses and customers would seem a natural fit for those coins, moving instantly between buyers and sellers, with what proponents have said is the liquidity as cash, because the coins are backed by dollar-denominated reserves and short-term U.S. Treasurys,” that report said.

Still, PYMNTS wrote, there are challenges in establishing a new payments shift. Complexities develop when stablecoins are used not only to settle funds, but as the actual method of consumer payments at checkout.

“Unlike traditional card networks, where dispute resolution is standardized and liability is contractually shared, stablecoin rails often lack defined rulesets,” that report added.

As for consumers, holding a wealth of stablecoins in a digital wallet to transact may be seen as just a new version of prepaid cards and gift cards. They’re akin to money tied up, waiting to be spent within the bounds of a commerce ecosystem.

“In that scenario, it may be the case that consumers hew to credit cards, which can be paid down over time and have rewards attached to them; transactions are also reversible and don’t need dedicated wallets,” PYMNTS wrote. “Time will tell if stablecoins will prove to be a game-changer for eCommerce.”