Blockchain Chronicle. As an innovative technology player, Stripe has quickly integrated cryptoassets into its ecosystem.
Having become a payment giant, Stripe processed more than a trillion dollars in transactions in 2023, generating revenue exceeding fourteen billion dollars. Founded in 2010, the company first established itself by offering payment acceptance solutions for websites, before expanding its offering to all payment and transfer services.
As an innovative technology player, Stripe has quickly integrated cryptoassets into its ecosystem. The platform now allows the implementation of payment modules accepting bank cards as well as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It also offers the direct purchase of crypto-assets, thus positioning its service as a transparent interface between traditional finance and the blockchain universe.
Recently, Stripe acquired Bridge for over $1 billion, a startup specializing in stablecoin payments on public blockchains. Bridge stands out for its simplified API allowing international payments in stablecoins and automatic conversion between different stable currencies, such as euros to dollars.
The mass adoption of stablecoin payments compared to traditional systems remains uncertain.
This orientation towards international payments is not accidental. The SWIFT system, which processes nearly fifty million international transactions daily, has numerous shortcomings: processing times of one to five days which can extend to several weeks, multiplication of commissions charged by banking intermediaries, lack of transparency on the payment status and fees applied, operation limited to business hours, and regularly exposed security vulnerabilities.
The strategy of Stripe and its competitors aims to supplant this system with a stablecoin solution offering near-instantaneous transfers, full traceability of fees, integrated exchange options, permanent availability and simplified web integration via API.
SWIFT’s historic monopoly largely explains its technological delay. The SEPA system, used within the European Union, although more efficient with processing times of forty-eight working hours, also suffers from a significant technological gap and the multiple proposals to improve it have not. Now it’s not possible to catch up.
The mass adoption of stablecoin payments compared to traditional systems remains uncertain. The major challenge will be to build trust and convince industry players to adopt these new platforms, as SWIFT is deeply embedded in their banking processes.
The key to success lies in the ability to hide blockchain complexity from end users: no more need to manage wallets or crypto-assets. Blockchain technology simply becomes the underlying infrastructure guaranteeing speed and security, like the Internet which was able to democratize access to the web by hiding the complexity of its protocols. This approach appears to be the sine qua non condition for the success of this project and similar innovations to come.
