chaintimes.com
In an interview with CNBC, the co-founder of Stripe, John Collison, revealed that the online payment company isn’t ruling out accepting as a method of payment in the future. Stripe had ended support for bitcoin payments in 2018, citing the digital coin’s notoriety for volatile price swings and a lack of efficiency in making everyday transactions. “Crypto obviously means a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” Collison said.
“I think it’s not implausible.”
Collison said some aspects to crypto — such as its use as a speculative investment — are “not that relevant to what we do at Stripe.” But, he added: “There have been a lot of developments of late with an eye to making cryptocurrencies better and, in particular, scalable and acceptable cost as a payment method.” When asked about whether Stripe would accept crypto payments, he replied, “We don’t yet, but I think it’s not implausible that we would.” The payment company recently formed a team dedicated to exploring crypto and “Web3,” a buzzword in tech that refers to a new, decentralized version of the internet.
“There are a number of innovations emerging in digital assets that have potential.”
Stripe’s co-founder Collison aid there are a number of innovations emerging in digital assets that have potential, including Solana — a competitor to ethereum, the world’s second-biggest digital currency — to “Layer 2” systems like bitcoin’s Lightning Network, which aim to speed up transactions and process them at a lower cost. Founded in 2009, Stripe has quickly become the largest privately-held fintech company in the U.S. The company was last valued at $95 billion and counts the likes of Baillie Gifford, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz as investors.