Shopify plug-in for USDC payments by Solana Pay

Exclusively reported that Solana Labs’ decentralized payment protocol, Solana Pay, has integrated its plug-in with Shopify, allowing millions of businesses on its platform to use it for payments.

Solana Pay launched in February 2022 on the layer-1 blockchain Solana. Josh Fried, business development and partnerships at Solana Foundation, told that USDC, the second largest stablecoin with a market cap of $25.9 billion, will be the initial payment option for this integration.

Going with USDC first was deliberate. Most merchants are likely to accept a dollar-linked item. USDC is more regulated than many altcoins, and consumers are used to using digital dollars. Fried said the protocol may add SOL and BONK in the future.

Shopify’s website claims 10% of U.S. e-commerce and $444 billion in global economic activity. Circle, Phantom, Checkout.com, and Citcon use Solana Pay, which has over 11.5 million active accounts.

“Some people argue the killer app for crypto hasn’t arrived, but it has: payments,” Fried said. “Everyone should double down on this.”

Fried said Solana Pay is almost “fee-free” compared to 1.5% to 3.5% credit card processing fees. Solana’s blockchain transactions cost $0.00025, or fractions of a penny. Of course, Solana has had downtime issues, which costs money. The blockchain reported 100% uptime in Q2, so things are improving. Shopify also launched a merchant credit card in July.

Fried said the integration can help merchants create loyalty programs with “little development.” NFT loyalty tokens can be launched when a customer checks out, and if they return and use Solana Pay, the store can give them a discount.
Fried added that Helius, Mad Lads, and MonkeDAO have also integrated Solana Pay on their Shopify storefronts. Phantom, Solflare, and Glow, which integrate with Solana Pay, can connect to the plug-in.

Shopify also accepts crypto payments. It released blockchain-enabled commerce tools and features in February to help merchants build tokengating apps. Shopify integrates with Coinbase Commerce, Strike, Crypto.com, and BitPay.

Solana Labs’ blockchain is “perfectly suited for payments,” Fried said. No intermediaries, bank fees, chargebacks, or holding times, he said. Merchant payments require POS speed. Nobody wants to wait for wallet transactions on a website. Can you imagine waiting three minutes for your payment at a store’s POS? Nobody wants to do that.”