Solana Labs announced the integration of its decentralized payment protocol – Solana Pay – with e-commerce giant Shopify as a new payment option. The move will enable millions of businesses operating on the Shopify platform to leverage Solana Pay for their payment needs.
Initially, USDC payments will be accepted via the integration, but more crypto-assets will added down the line.
Solana Pay x Shopify
According to the official press release, Solana Pay will essentially eliminate bank fees, chargebacks, and holding times while allowing immediate, direct payment settlement of USD stablecoins compatible with Solana.
Furthermore, merchants and consumers using Solana Pay will also be able to benefit from Web3-enabled commerce experiences, such as token-gated offers, simple cross-border payments, as well as NFT-based loyalty programs.
Commenting on the development, Solana Foundation’s Head of Commerce Business Development, Josh Fried, said,
“Solana Pay on Shopify opens up millions of merchants to a more dynamic and efficient payment choice, while consumers get the convenience and increased utility of being able to pay for goods and services with digital dollar currencies from the vast network of merchants using Shopify.”
Launched in February 2022, Solana Pay is an open-source protocol built on top of the layer-1 blockchain Solana. The initial payment option for its integration with Shopify will include USDC, the second-largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of nearly $26 billion.
In a statement provided to TechCrunch, Fried explained that the choice of USDC was deliberate and was influenced by the fact that most merchants are likely to be more receptive to adopting a payment method closely linked to the stability of the US Dollar.
He went on to add that Circle’s USDC, being subject to higher regulatory oversight compared to other crypto-assets, holds a level of familiarity among consumers already accustomed to transacting in digital dollars. However, Solana Pay remains open to the possibility of incorporating other crypto-assets, including SOL and BONK, into its offerings in the near future.
Solana: 6 Months Without Outage
The Solana blockchain experienced significant disruptions caused by recurrent outages, some of which persisted for more than a day. However, the subsequent upgrades, such as the implementation of QUIC TPU, Stake weighted QoS, and localized free markets, have improved the network’s capacity to manage substantial traffic and meet demand.
As a result, Solana maintained uninterrupted service for the past six months and has been 100% uptime since February.
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