Stripe
Payments Giant Stripe Open to Launching Crypto Support, Highlights Potential of Solana and Lightning Network
The president of payments giant Stripe says the firm is open to the possibility of integrating crypto into its platform. Three years after abandoning support for Bitcoin (BTC) due to volatility concerns, Stripe co-founder and president John Collison tells CNBC in a new interview that the industry titan is reconsidering its stance on crypto. “One […]
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Stripe Says It’s Considering Bringing Back Crypto Payments
Blockchain Industry to Surpass $67 Billion by 2027: Fintech Report Names 2021’s Most Influential Blockchain Companies
Financial technology (fintech) has exploded during the last two years and cryptocurrency and blockchain firms have bolstered the billion-dollar industry. A recently published study by Utility Bidder indicates that the industry is predicted to surpass $382 billion by 2027. Moreover, fintech firms that are blockchain-specific are projected to be worth over $67.4 billion by 2027. […]Stripe builds new crypto team for payments three years after dropping Bitcoin
After pulling back from Bitcoin three years ago, Stripe is looking to re-enter the crypto sector.
U.S. fintech giant Stripe is hiring a new blockchain team to enable crypto payments for its users.
The $100 billion company is returning to the crypto sector three years after it pulled back from offering Bitcoin support due its slow transaction times and rising fees.
According to a job listing page on Stripe’s website, the firm is looking for four “Staff Engineers'' with experience in the crypto sector. Guillaume Poncin, the head of engineering stated on Twitter earlier today that he’s looking for engineers and designers to “build the future of Web3 payments.”
The listing outlines that the future engineers and designers will be tasked with working “across everything from web/mobile UIs to backend, payments and identity systems.”
“We hear a growing need from developers and users in that space for better building blocks to accept payments, move funds, exchange between fiat and crypto, etc. By focusing on these problems and needs, we aim to build faster, more trustworthy, and higher quality crypto-enabled experiences,” the listing reads.
Stripe announced a new Web3 payments team and Coinbase announced an NFT product this morning.
— Chris Neumann (@ckneumann) October 12, 2021
Probably nothing.
Stripe Co-founder John Collison chimed in on Poncin’s post by stating that “Stripe and crypto have grown up at the same time,” and said that the firm decided to take the plunge into crypto after observing “exciting” developments in the space:
“We started writing code the year after the Bitcoin paper dropped. We’ve always kept an eye on things (e.g. Bitcoin support 2013-2015) but last few years’ developments (L2s, new chains, stablecoins, DeFi) are particularly exciting.”
The move to accept crypto payments comes after major competitors includ Square, Paypal, Mastercard, and Square have all entered the crypto sector. Square launched BTC trading via its Cash App in 2018, Paypal launched crypto support for U.S. customers in October 2020, while Mastercard announced in February this year that it would support multiple crypto assets on its network.
Stripe initially started accepting Bitcoin (BTC) back in 2014, but withdrew support four years later due to its slow transaction times and rising fees. In a blog post from Jan. 23 2018, Stripe stated that it may return to the sector once crypto payments are “viable,” pointing to the development of the Lightning Network and “high-potential” projects emerging on the Ethereum blockchain.
Earlier this year in June, Collison hinted that the firm was looking at crypto again as he told Bloomberg TV that:
"If you think of the kind of world that crypto people and we are trying to bring about, I think it's a very related set of goals."
"We are stuck down at this level where only a fifth of interactions are cross border, crypto is one very exciting direction for trying to solve that," he added.
Related: Meet the crypto payment gateway startup that strives to become the Stripe of Africa
The digital payments company was founded in 2011 and has a current valuation at around $100 billion. In March 2021, Stripe raised $600 million in a funding round at a valuation of $95 billion, more than doubling its previous valuation of $35 billion from 2019. According to data from Built With, there are currently 784,256 active websites using Stripe’s payments platform.
CNN selling historic news ‘moments’ as NFTs
CNN will drop NFTs depicting historic moments such as space travel, technological advancements, and presidential elections.
CNN has followed Fox and Time Magazine into the NFT market, announcing the launch of collectible historic moments from the news.
CNN’s NFT project is dubbed “Vault by CNN: Moments That Changed Us” and includes a series of tokenized iconic moments from its 41-year history, along with a vault to purchase, store and display the NFTs.
The news organization has not revealed which specific historic moments will be tokenized, however, it noted that themes including CNN exclusives, notable firsts, world history, and presidential elections, will be covered.
The initial launch will include six weekly drops starting from late June, with CNN teasing the first drops may depict space travel and election results. The NFTs will be sold in a combination of open and limited editions.
The NFTs will be minted on the Flow blockchain, which CNN chose for its energy-efficient proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Flow is also home to NBA Top Shot, which has had huge success selling iconic sporting ‘moments’.
To purchase NFTs, users will need to sign up to CNN’s vault, where they will store their moments. Cryptocurrency is not be required to purchase, with the platform accepting credit cards via third-party payment platform Stripe. The vault’s description reads:
“Until now, there has been no way to 'collect' these moments. Users can often find old footage online, or packaged up in documentaries, but they cannot 'own' them or display them in the way they can with a print newspaper or magazine.”
CNN has also partnered with video framing firm Infinite Objects so that users will have the option of rendering their NFT onto a screen and displaying it physically offline. The vault’s description reads.
Interestingly CNN’s online archive already boasts 700,000 hours of news content that can already be purchased and downloaded without conferring 'ownership'.
Despite putting forward ownership as a value proposition of the NFTs, they note that “CNN retains copyright and ownership over the content.”
Related: Want to own an NFT of your favorite movie scene? Soon, you might be able to
A growing number of news outlets and media organizations have entered the NFT market in 2021.
CNN’s move into NFTs follows Fox Corp’s announcement of a $100 million creative fund for NFT content creation yesterday to accompany its animated tv shows.
In late March, Time Magazine entered the market with three tokenized magazine covers on SuperRare, with the “TIME Space Exploration — January 19th, 1959” generating the biggest sale of 135 Ether (ETH) worth around $318,000 at today’s prices.
Since then, Time has dropped another seven NFTs depicting magazine covers, with the “TIME First Issue — March 3, 1923” fetching 120 ETH worth roughly $283,000 in June.