John Collison, the co-founder of the online payments company Stripe, recently said that it’s possible that Stripe will accept cryptocurrency payments in the years to come. This comes in stark contrast to the company’s decision to end support for payments in Bitcoin back in 2018. Back then, the company stated that the inefficiency of cryptocurrencies for everyday transactions and their volatile swings in the market as the reasons behind their decision.
Collison’s latest comments came at Tuesday’s Fintech Abu Dhabi Festival, where he was a part of a panel moderated by CNBC. Collison also said that cryptocurrencies had certain aspects that aren’t relevant to Stripe’s business, such as the use of cryptos as speculative investments. However, he also added that in recent times, there have been numerous developments to make cryptocurrencies better.
Stripe has been in crypto news recently for forming a dedicated team for exploring “Web3” and crypto. The head of engineering at Stripe, Guillaume Poncin, is the man who is leading the team effort. It also was in the spotlight for appointing Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang to the company’s board of directors. Paradigm is a venture capital firm that’s crypto-focused.
Collison acknowledged that certain innovations in the world of cryptocurrencies have a lot of potential. He mentioned Ethereum competitor Solana as one of the innovations with potential along with the Lightning Network that’s set to enhance Bitcoin transaction processing speed.
Stripe dates back to 2009, and in a short time, it has become the USA’s largest fintech company that’s privately held. The company’s present valuation is around $95 million.
