Stripe rolls out crypto payouts with Twitter as its first partner

Online payments giant Stripe has announced a feature that lets businesses pay their users via crypto, with Twitter set to be the first company to pilot the program.

Announced on Friday, Stripe’s crypto payouts for Connect will see Twitter users opt-in to receive their earnings directly into a crypto wallet.

Esther Crawford, Product Lead for Creators at Twitter commented on the collaboration: 

“We’re excited to begin offering crypto payouts to creators via Stripe, so they have more choice in how they get paid."

Crypto payouts via USDC on Polygon

Stripe, a $95 billion fintech giant, will handle all the crypto-related operations that go into the payments, it said in the statement. According to the company, the first crypto asset in the program will be the USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin issued by the global financial technology firm Circle Internet Financial.

The payouts will be completed on the Polygon (MATIC) network.  Stripe said it chose to use the Layer 2 blockchain network due to its low fees, transaction speed, and integration with Ethereum. 

Polygon also offers integration with multiple wallets, including Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask and Rainbow, offering access to a potentially wider group of users.

Stripe plans to expand the program to other companies in due course. It will also add support for other cryptocurrencies.

Stripe’s ‘comeback’ into crypto

It’s been over four since Stripe – founded in 2010 by Patrick Collison and John Collison – halted support for Bitcoin. In January 2018, the San Francisco-based payments firm ended support for BTC due to wild price fluctuations and inefficiency when in relation to small transactions.

That’s likely to change in the near future though, with co-founder John Collison suggesting in November 2021 that Stripe could once again look to support cryptocurrencies.

Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter

In unrelated developments, Twitter finds itself a sort of news fixture over the past few weeks. In early April the billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk increased his stake in the company to 9.1%, becoming the majority shareholder. A seat on Twitter’s board of directors was then offered, but he decided not to join.

The billionaire, currently Forbes’ richest person for 2022, returned with a $43 billion tender offer to buy the company. Twitter reacted with a “poison pill” as it looked to block what was seen as a “hostile takeover”. Musk has not given up and on Thursday, 21 April, announced that he now had $46.5 billion ready to buy the company.