On June 12th, global e-commerce giant Shopify announced that it has collaborated with major US exchange Coinbase to launch early access to USDC stablecoin payments on Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network, Base.
This feature will be initially piloted to some merchants in the United States and Europe at the end of June, and then gradually expanded to all platform merchants. It will be enabled by default, and merchants need to manually select to turn it off. By integrating with payment service provider Stripe into its existing system, Shopify has developed a payment protocol running on the Base blockchain, supporting refund and dishonor processing.
This measure enables merchants to use their existing payment and order fulfillment systems to accept payments from global customers using USDC stablecoins without the need for new integrations or gateways. Customers can make payments using USDC through hundreds of supported crypto wallets, including methods such as guest checkout and Shop Pay. By default, merchants will receive payments in local currency without the need to pay foreign exchange transaction or conversion fees. You can also choose to directly deposit USDC into your own wallet.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke wrote on the X platform: “We believe that stablecoins are a natural way of Internet transactions. We have collaborated with Coinbase to develop a smart contract for commercial payment protocols to achieve this function.” He also mentioned that in the future, Shopify plans to offer buyer incentives such as a 1% local currency cashback for USDC transactions.
Coinbase’s Base blockchain is the fourth-largest network for USDC. According to the USDC Transparency report and CoinGecko’s data, the USDC issued by Base accounts for 6% of the total supply of the stablecoin, which is $61 billion. Shopify claims that Base is an “ultra-fast and affordable network that has become an excellent way to transfer funds”, offering “fast, cheap and secure transactions” and providing a global payment track around the clock.
However, Shopify’s practice of only supporting Base networks has drawn some criticism from the crypto community, with some calling for broader blockchain interoperability to increase access and reduce friction. However, in any case, this move marks one of the most significant applications of stablecoins in real-world business, indicating a shift in mainstream retail towards blockchain-based payment tracks and opening up global market access for merchants.
Moreover, Shopify’s collaboration with Coinbase is not its first foray into the crypto field. Since at least 2013, Shopify has indirectly supported Bitcoin payments through gateway integration, when the company announced that its 75,000 merchants could freely start accepting Bitcoin. In addition, Shopify also enables merchants to integrate at least nine other payment methods by integrating with third-party gateways such as BitPay and Solana Pay, covering a variety of supported crypto assets.
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