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Instant Payments Fintech Ivy Adds Circle’s USDC, EURC Stablecoins

Ivy, a German startup focused on instant payments, said it added access to Circle's (CIRCL) USDC and EURC stablecoins to its always on-transaction rails.

The Berlin-based fintech’s platform allows crypto firms, payment service providers (PSPs) and e-commerce merchants to instantly make bank payments, settle funds to local collection accounts across Europe in multiple currencies, and seamlessly convert them into stablecoins, according to a Wednesday press release.

The deal makes Ivy one of the first platforms offering instant bank payments to enable seamless settlement in USDC, the second-largest dollar stablecoin, and EURC, the largest euro stablecoin, the release said.

Stablecoins, which became a convenient cornerstone of crypto trading partly thanks to the blockchain industry’s tricky relationship with the banking world, are becoming a prominent payment mechanism across the internet. Circle, which this year completed an IPO in the U.S., has turned some of its focus to global payments and remittances with the introduction of the Circle Payments Network (CPN) in April.

“Real-time payment rails and stablecoins belong together,” said Ferdinand Dabitz, CEO and do-founder of Ivy. “Hundreds of merchants are already building on Ivy’s global API for instant bank payments. With native support of Circle’s USDC and EURC, our customers can now instantly mint and burn USDC directly from fiat via a 24/7/365 settlement layer.”

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Bolt Embraces Stablecoin Payments for Global Marketplaces as Digital Dollar Race Heats Up

Bolt, San Francisco-based checkout and payments platform, said on Friday it has added support for stablecoin payments, a move aimed at streamlining cross-border commerce for marketplaces and merchants using its network.

The addition is part of Bolt Connect, a new product focused on helping digital marketplaces scale quickly by automating merchant onboarding, compliance and payouts.

For merchants, receiving stablecoin payments means fewer bank intermediaries, faster settlements and lower transaction costs, the company explained the initiative in the press release. Consumers can benefit, too: a shopper without a bank account or buying from a store across the world can pay instantly using digital dollars without incurring foreign transaction fees or waiting on credit card clearances.

“Marketplaces shouldn't have to choose between scale and simplicity,” said Ryan Breslow, Founder and CEO of Bolt. “With Bolt Connect, we're giving them the tools to grow without the usual technical burden, while stablecoin support opens the door to faster, borderless payments for everyone in the network.”

Bolt is the latest example of global payment firms like Mastercard, Visa and Stripe racing to embrace stablecoins, a type of digital currency with prices anchored to an external asset such as fiat currencies, into their offerings. It's a $260 billion, and rapidly growing, asset class which promises programmable transactions and faster, cheaper cross-border payments than through traditional banking channels. Adoption is expected to accelerate after the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act to regulate the stablecoin sector.

Bolt's stablecoin initiative came on the heels of debuting its financial “SuperApp” that allows users to hold, send and receive cryptocurrencies including stablecoins within the application.

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Crypto Exchange Kraken Unveils ‘Krak,’ Its New All-in-One Global Money App

Cryptocurrency exchange giant Kraken introduced a blockchain-powered global money app called Krak that allows users to instantly transact across borders for almost no cost, while also earning competitive rewards on their account balances.

Krak is designed to fix the outdated norms of legacy finance, Kraken said, blending crypto technology with the exchange’s trusted network of banking relationships and payment partnerships. The app will allow users to send funds peer-to-peer across 110 countries and using 300-plus assets, spanning cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and fiat currencies without inserting bank details or crypto wallet addresses, according to a press release.

As the U.S. opens up more to crypto, big exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken are busy closing gaps in their customer offerings, whether that’s taking advantage of crypto rails for payments, earning yield or trading stocks.

The Krak app will also offer dedicated spend and earn accounts, where eligible users can earn up to 4.1% rewards on USDG stablecoin balances as well as additional opportunities across 20+ digital assets yielding up to 10%. USDG is the dollar-pegged token of the Global Dollar Network, of which Kraken is a key member.

“Look, banking sucks; maybe that's the simplest way to say it,” Mark Greenberg, Kraken's global head of consumer product said, in an interview. “I spent my whole career in banking and tried many different ways over the years to try to make it better. But it's still too hard to move money, to send it, to share it, to spend it, to move it across borders, to earn off of it in a reasonable way. And crypto has always been a big part of the answer.”

Read more: Crypto Exchange Kraken Wins MiCA License in Ireland

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Stripe Explores Bank Partnerships on Stablecoins as Payments Importance Grows, Says Company President

Payments firm Stripe held early discussions with banks about integrating stablecoins into their core service as digital tokens are gaining traction for global payments, co-founder and president John Collison said in an interview with Bloomberg.

“Banks are very interested in how they should be integrated with stablecoins into their product offerings as well,” said Collison. “This is not something that banks are just kind of brushing away or treating as a fad.”

His comments underscore the rising interest among traditional financial firms to explore stablecoins, one of the fastest-growing use cases of crypto. Stablecoins, which have become a $240 billion asset class, are blockchain-based tokens anchored to government-issued currencies, predominantly to the U.S. dollar. They offer cheaper, faster alternative with around-the clock settlements compared to traditional payments channels.

PayPal (PYPL) launched its own U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin PYUSD, while French bank Societe Generale issued a euro-backed token EURCV. Visa developed a tokenization platform to help banks issue stablecoins.

Stripe is also betting on the growing role of stablecoins in international payments.

The firm made headlines earlier this year by acquiring stablecoin tech startup Bridge for $1.1 billion. Since then, Bridge rolled out its own stablecoin USDB while Stripe introduced stablecoin accounts in over 100 countries.

“A lot of our future payment volume is going to be in stablecoins,” Collison said in the interview.

He pointed to costly FX fees and multi-day processing times as pain points that stablecoins could address.

Read more: Tether, Tron Dominate Fast-Growing Stablecoin Payments Arena, Survey Shows

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Tether, Tron Dominate Fast-Growing Stablecoin Payments Arena, Survey Shows

Tether’s USDT token and the Tron blockchain network dominate the rapidly growing stablecoin payment industry, according analytics firm Artemis with help from investment firms Dragonfly and Castle Island Ventures.

A report entitled “Stablecoin Payments from the Ground Up” looked at data from 31 stablecoin payment companies, and found USDT, the largest stablecoin, accounted for 90 percent of payment transaction volume, followed by Circle’s USDC, the second-largest. Tron was the preferred settlement network, hosting around 60 percent of volume, followed by Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Polygon.

The snapshot of stablecoin payment volume taken in February added up to an annualized $72.3 billion, covering various payment types and sectors (B2B, P2P, B2C, Card, and Lending).

Stablecoins, predominantly U.S. dollar-pegged digital tokens, were originally used to conveniently park money while trading cryptocurrencies. But these low-cost, instantly-settled financial instruments are now eating payments across the board, with bullish estimates on the potential size of that market coming from both crypto native firms and major banks.

It’s perhaps surprising that the share of Circle’s USDC isn't larger, given the firm’s involvement in payments and recent plans to introduce a dedicated cross-border payments network.

In addition, Circle, which this week filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, has been taking market share from Tether in terms of issuance, so the expectation might have been a similar or pro-rata level when it comes to payments volume, said Dragonfly general partner Rob Hadick.

“For the 31 providers we got data from at least, it’s clear that’s not the case for the payments use case,” Hadick said in an interview. “In fact, a higher portion of the volume, relative to the issuance, is happening with Tether, and it's happening primarily on Tron and then Ethereum. This was quite surprising to us.”

This perspective is partly shaped by the fact that a lot of business-to-business uses, such as paying suppliers for global supply chains, is happening from emerging markets to the U.S. or from the U.S. to emerging markets. In some of those markets, places like Argentina or Brazil, for instance, people might be worried about things like bank failures, and Tether is seen as a trusted brand, Hadick said.

Moreover, firms that use stablecoins for payments have little concern about which blockchain is being used to settle on. Tron is fast and cheap and there’s over $60 billion of USDT on the chain, so it simply makes sense, he added.

“If you go to Argentina or Brazil, people don't say they want to use stablecoins, they say we use Tether,” Hadick said. “Tether is the brand that is ubiquitous with USD access, in the same way that in the U.S. Uber is ubiquitous with taking a car that you call from your phone.”

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KuCoin Enhances Point-of-Sale Mobile Payments With AEON

Crypto exchange KuCoin's merchant service is enhancing its provision for users to complete mobile transactions with cryptocurrency.

KuCoin Pay has tapped payment protocol AEON to allow users to pay for goods and services online and in-store using cryptos such as bitcoin BTC, ether ETH and stablecoins USDT and USDC, according to an emailed announcement on Tuesday.

The service is being rolled out across “high-growing Asian markets” initially with plans to expand in the future, a KuCoin spokesperson told CoinDesk via Telegram.

KuCoin, like other crypto firms, is exploring how it can accelerate crypto adoption by allowing users to easily spend cryptocurrency when carrying out day-to-day transactions.

The Seychelles-headquartered exchange unveiled KuCoin Pay at the start of this year, allowing merchants to integrate it into their systems and enable cryptocurrency payments. The tie-up with AEON is intended to drive user adoption through offering faster and more secure mobile payments across all major blockchains.

Read More: Lyzi Raises $1.4M to Expand Tezos-Based Crypto Payments Service for Retail

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Dubai Government Opens Door to Accepting Crypto for Service Fees

Dubai agreed to allow cryptocurrency payments for government services in a deal with crypto exchange Crypto.com, taking a step toward implementing its plan for a cashless society.

Once technical details are complete, the agreement will allow individuals and businesses to pay fees using digital wallets from Crypto.com, which is licensed by the emirate's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). The platform will then convert the amounts into dirhams for payment, according to a Monday press release.

The agreement allows the government “to harness financial technology in launching a new digital payment channel on the government’s digital portals,” it said in the release. The cashless strategy is expected to add at least 8 billion dirhams ($2.2 billion) annually to the economy.

Dubai has been building its crypto credentials for several years and sees itself as a Middle East crypto hub. In March 2022, it established VARA, calling it the world’s first independent crypto regulator, and has awarded licenses to exchanges including Binance and OKX. It also initiated a metaverse strategy aiming to attract 1,000 metaverse and blockchain companies by 2030.

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Circle’s Refund Protocol, explained: Bringing refunds to stablecoin payments

Circle’s Refund Protocol, explained: Bringing refunds to stablecoin payments

Why are refunds important in stablecoin payments?

Anyone who has used traditional payment systems will likely be familiar with refunds and chargebacks. If a purchase goes wrong, like receiving damaged items or not receiving the product at all, the payer can file a complaint with the seller to recover their funds. This process of refunds builds trust between payers and sellers, ensuring secure transactions for both sides.

However, stablecoin transactions differ significantly. Unlike credit cards or PayPal, stablecoin payments are generally irreversible. Once sent, the payment is final, with no standard way to dispute or reverse it if issues arise, which can make payers wary of using stablecoins for daily purchases.

This highlights the importance of refunds in the stablecoin ecosystem. Just as payers rely on protections with traditional payment methods, stablecoin transactions need comparable systems to inspire confidence. 

Without options to dispute or reverse payments, payers may avoid stablecoins for online shopping or other transactions. A clear, reliable refund system could make stablecoin payments safer and more attractive for payers, whether purchasing digital goods, services or physical items.

Circle’s Refund Protocol, explained

Circle’s refund protocol is basically a smart contract designed to resolve payment disputes while preventing custodial control over funds. It has transformed the role of arbiter by restricting their ability to redirect funds at will or indefinitely block access.

Traditionally, an arbiter could fully control escrowed funds, including misusing or losing them. The Refund Protocol changes this by limiting the arbiter’s powers strictly to dispute resolution. Rather than making the arbiter all-powerful, the protocol entrusts the arbiter with three specific authorities:

  • Set a lockup period during which the payer’s funds are securely held in escrow
  • Authorize refunds to a pre-specified address provided by the payer
  • Allow early fund withdrawal by the payer if they pay a mutually agreed fee to the arbiter.

Refund Protocol allows a third party to mediate payment disputes without taking custody of the money.

The arbiter cannot send the funds to any arbitrary address, ensuring they remain non-custodial. The use of a smart contract ensures transparency, locking the process into code rather than trusting human discretion. The smart contract logs the recipient’s address, amount and refund address. 

By removing full custodial rights and fixing the dispute period, the Refund Protocol protects both payers and recipients while offering a structured, tamper-proof way to handle disagreements.

The smart contract in Refund Protocol records the recipient's address, amount, and refund address.

Key features of Circle’s Refund Protocol

In digital payments, stablecoins like USDC (USDC) have transformed transactions by providing swift, borderless and stable payment options. But these stablecoins lack the ability to manage disputes or process refunds, which is typically expected from traditional payment systems such as credit cards. The Refund Protocol fills this void.

Here are the key features of the Refund Protocol:

  • Non-custodial escrow: With the Refund Protocol, funds are never controlled by a central party. You don’t need to trust any single entity with your funds. Instead, the smart contract itself ensures that funds are only released when the conditions are met. This creates a more secure and trustworthy system for both payers and sellers.
  • Mediation by an arbiter: If a dispute arises, the Refund Protocol employs an arbiter who works as a neutral mediator to settle conflicts without centralization or excessive authority. The arbiter’s role is to facilitate dispute resolution, not to manage the funds. If the payer and the seller cannot resolve the issue, the arbiter can make a final ruling, but they cannot arbitrarily access or control the funds. 
  • Lockup periods: To allow both parties time to address issues, the Refund Protocol incorporates lockup periods. During this period, funds stay in escrow, giving both sides an opportunity for negotiation or dispute resolution before funds are transferred to the payer. This ensures the payment isn’t immediately lost to fraud or mistakes.
  • Early withdrawals: If the seller needs access to funds before the lockup period concludes, the Refund Protocol permits early withdrawals. But this is subject to a fee and requires consent from both the payer and the arbiter. Early withdrawals offer flexibility, enabling quicker access to funds if both parties agree on the conditions.
  • Composability and transparency: A standout feature of the Refund Protocol is its composability, designed to integrate effortlessly with other blockchain-based applications. All transactions are logged on the blockchain, allowing the payer to monitor their funds’ status and maintain a clear record if a dispute occurs.

Did you know? The Refund Protocol is built to work with USDC and can be integrated into merchant platforms, wallets or payment services. This opens doors to mainstream e-commerce use cases, where stablecoin refunds become as seamless as traditional card chargebacks.

How Circle’s Refund Protocol works

With Circle’s Refund Protocol, the payer no longer needs to avoid USDC payments, fearing an irreversible payment. It offers a transparent, decentralized and clear method to resolve disputes, ensuring funds’ safety. 

Here is how the refund protocol works:

  1. The payment: When the payer makes a payment, funds aren’t instantly transferred to the seller. The protocol’s smart contract holds the funds in escrow, showing the payment as initiated but pausing the transfer until conditions are fulfilled.
  2. The refund: If an issue occurs post-payment, such as non-delivery of service or products, the payer can request a refund from escrow if the supplier agrees. But if the seller doesn’t consent, they can escalate the matter to the arbiter for a resolution.
  3. The withdrawal: After the lockup period, if no disputes arise, the seller can withdraw funds without arbiter involvement. The decentralized, non-custodial system would only hold funds when needed.
  4. Early withdrawal: If the seller needs funds sooner, they can request early withdrawal. This feature includes a fee the arbiter determines and must be mutually agreed upon with the payer. To prevent arbitrary charges, the recipient must sign off on the terms before the withdrawal can happen.

Did you know? The protocol predefines refund addresses at the time of payment. This means that even if disputes arise, arbiters can’t redirect funds elsewhere. It’s a privacy-preserving and fraud-resistant design that limits trust assumptions while still allowing dispute mediation.

Benefits of the Refund Protocol

Refund Protocol transforms stablecoin transactions by prioritizing security, transparency and user autonomy. It delivers a cost-effective, decentralized framework that enhances trust and usability for everyday payments.

Here are some benefits of the Refund Protocol:

  • Non-custodial system: The Refund Protocol ensures funds remain free from centralized control and, subsequently, arbitrary decision-making. This mechanism boosts trust as the payers don’t need to rely on any single entity. The smart contract ensures automated release of funds when conditions are met, fostering a secure, trustworthy environment for both payers and sellers.
  • Transparent dispute resolution: A key advantage of the Refund Protocol is a transparent dispute resolution process. If an issue arises, an arbiter resolves it. As all transactions are onchain, both payers and buyers can monitor dispute progress anytime. 
  • Flexibility and control: The payer can designate a refund address in advance, setting payment terms. A seller may withdraw funds early, though with a fee. These features provide greater control over fund handling, which becomes especially useful for uses like e-commerce.
  • Lower costs: By eliminating intermediaries like banks or payment processors, the Refund Protocol cuts transaction fees. This makes stablecoin payments a cost-effective option, particularly for cross-border transfers where traditional methods are slow and expensive.
  • Greater stablecoin adoption: The Refund Protocol has overcome a significant hurdle to stablecoin use — the lack of trust. Its transparent, fair dispute resolution encourages more businesses and consumers to adopt stablecoins.

Did you know? Circle’s Refund Protocol helps bridge the trust gap in crypto commerce by mimicking familiar Web2 refund experiences but in a decentralized way. It demonstrates how programmable money can unlock new consumer protection forms without sacrificing blockchain’s permissionless ethos.

Challenges concerning the Refund Protocol

The Refund Protocol faces hurdles in achieving widespread adoption and seamless functionality. Addressing these challenges is crucial for its scalability and integration into global payment systems.

Here are the challenges the Refund Protocol is facing:

  • Adoption by wallet providers: For the Refund Protocol to work smoothly, wallet providers must integrate it with the wallet. If a wallet doesn’t support specifying refund addresses or interacting with the Refund Protocol smart contract, both the payers and the sellers may not be able to use the full range of features. 
  • Gas costs and scalability: The Refund Protocol requires multiple interactions with the blockchain — payment deposits, withdrawals and dispute resolutions — each of which can incur gas costs. As the number of transactions grows, the fee may become prohibitive, particularly in high-volume applications. 
  • Legal and regulatory considerations: As stablecoins become more widely adopted, there may be legal and regulatory challenges regarding the enforceability of the protocol. The role of the arbiter in dispute resolution may need clarification under various jurisdictions, which could impact the global use of the protocol.
  • Malicious arbiters: While the Refund Protocol minimizes the power of the arbiter, there is still the probability of misuse. A malicious arbiter could approve a refund that isn’t justified, leading to unfair outcomes. To mitigate this risk, auditing mechanisms and reputation systems could help ensure that arbiters act fairly and responsibly.
  • Integration with traditional payment systems: As stablecoins gain popularity, there will likely be challenges in integrating them with traditional fiat-based systems. Most consumers are still accustomed to using credit cards or other payment methods, so ensuring that the Refund Protocol works seamlessly with both stablecoins and fiat currencies is a key challenge for the future.
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Mesh Adds Apple Pay to Let Shoppers Spend Crypto, Settle in Stablecoins

Crypto payments startup Mesh is planning to roll out Apple Pay support for crypto transactions, allowing shoppers to pay with digital assets while settling transactions in stablecoins for merchants.

The feature, unveiled during Token2049 in Dubai, converts crypto to stablecoins at checkout using Mesh’s proprietary SmartFunding technology. The system sidesteps the need for merchants to handle crypto directly, offering what Mesh calls a “plug-and-play” payment option through Apple Pay’s interface.

This way, brick-and-mortar retailers and webshops can accept crypto payments without the need for building out the necessary infrastructure. Mesh plans to launch the feature later in the second quarter of the year.

“We believe that as soon as crypto payments are as seamless as fiat payments, nothing is left to stop the mass migration of global commerce onto blockchain rails,” said Bam Azizi, CEO and co-founder of Mesh.

Blockchain rails and stablecoins, which are crypto tokens pegged to the value of traditional currencies, have become increasingly central to payments. They offer faster, cheaper alternative to traditional channels, and are rapidly growing for remittances, payroll and commerce. Payments giant Stripe is testing a stablecoin tool following its acquisition of Bridge, while PayPal launched its own stablecoin.

Mesh raised $82 million earlier this year to expand its stablecoin-based payments settlement network globally.

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Stablecoins Are a ‘WhatsApp Moment’ for Money Transfers, a16z Says

Remember the old days when calling or sending a message via text outside the country cost money? With the help of modern messaging apps like WhatsApp, paying for cross-border calls and texts is now obsolete.

For money transfers, stablecoins might do just that: democratize the payments industry by eliminating historical gatekeepers, says venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

“Just as WhatsApp disrupted costly international phone calls, blockchain payments and stablecoins are transforming global money transfers,” the firm said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The current global payment infrastructure is a complex web involving points of sale, payment processors, acquiring banks, issuing banks, correspondent banks, foreign exchanges, and card networks.

Read more: What Is a Stablecoin?

To make matters more difficult, each of these intermediaries charges fees and introduces delays, making international transactions cumbersome. For instance, a16z says remittance fees can reach up to 10% — just like cross-border calls or text used to be restrictive before instant messaging apps came into play.

Enter blockchain and stablecoins — cryptocurrencies pegged to assets like the U.S. dollar.

“Stablecoins offer a clean-slate alternative. Instead of stitching together clunky, costly, and outdated systems, stablecoins flow seamlessly on top of global blockchains,” the blog post said.

“Already, stablecoins are slashing the cost of remittances: Sending $200 from the U.S. to Columbia using traditional methods will cost you $12.13; with stablecoins, it costs $0.01.”

And, it’s not just remittances where stablecoins are eliminating inefficiencies; this could help boost B2B payments on a massive scale, too. A16z uses business transactions from Mexico to Vietnam as an example, which take three to seven days to process and cost anywhere between $14-to-$150 per $1000 transacted. These pass through as many as five intermediaries along the way, each of which takes a cut.

The adoption of stablecoin could make such transactions nearly free and instant, it says.

Some corporations have taken notice, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX is already using stablecoins to manage their corporate treasuries to shield itself from FX volatility.

So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to see that the total market cap of stablecoins has passed $200 billion or that the annualized transaction value of stablecoins in 2024 hit $15.6 trillion — roughly 119% and 200% that of Visa and Mastercard, respectively.

However, the rise of stablecoins isn’t without challenges.

Regulatory bodies have scrutinized their use, making it “incredibly difficult” to bridge traditional finance to stablecoins, said a16z. The landscape is now finally evolving, as policymakers are now actively shaping rules to recognize and regulate stablecoins in the U.S. “A forthcoming bill clarifying this regulation could pave the way for even broader adoption and integration into the global financial system,” the blog said.

With the rapidly changing landscape for finance and crypto becoming more mainstream, stablecoins could become the transformative force that revolutionizes the future of money.

“Just as WhatsApp disrupted costly international phone calls, blockchain payments and stablecoins are transforming global money transfers,” added a16z.

Read more: U.S. House Committee Advances Stablecoin Bill, While Dems Warn of Trump Conflicts

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Ripple Integrates RLUSD Stablecoin Into Cross-Border Payments System

Ripple, an enterprise-focused blockchain service closely tied to the XRP Ledger (XRP), said on Wednesday it has integrated its stablecoin to the company’s cross-border payments system to boost adoption for Ripple USD (RLUSD).

Select Ripple Payments customers including cross-border payment providers BKK Forex and iSend are already using the stablecoin to improve their treasury operations, the company said. Ripple plans to further expand the token’s availability of its token to payments customers.

Additionally, crypto exchange Kraken added RLUSD to its platform, following recent listings on LMAX and Bitstamp.

Ripple entered the rapidly growing stablecoin market with its short-term U.S. government bond-backed cryptocurrency after receiving regulatory approval from the New York New York Department of Financial Services in December.

Since then, RLUSD reached a $244 million market capitalization, growing 87% over the past month and reaching a monthly transfer volume of $860 million, rwa.xyz data shows.

Jack McDonald, Ripple’s senior vice president of stablecoins, said in a statement that RLUSD’s growth is “outpacing our internal projections” with adoption spanning multiple financial sectors. Ripple is also working with NGOs exploring stablecoins for more efficient aid distribution, he added.

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Sony Begins Accepting USDC Payments in Its Singapore Online Store

Sony customers in Singapore can now use the USDC stablecoin in its online store.

Sony Electronics’ Singapore (SES) has integrated cryptocurrency payments in partnership with crypto exchange Crypto.com, the two firms said Wednesday.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged to a real-world asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold. USDC, issued by Circle, is the second-largest dollar-backed token, trailing only Tether’s USDT in size.

Headquartered in Singapore, Crypto.com won approval as a provider of Digital Payment Token (DPT) services in the city state in June 2023, allowing it to provide crypto payments to clients.

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MoonPay Buys Crypto Payment Processor Helio for $175M

MoonPay, a crypto infrastructure service provider, has bought Helio, a Solana-powered crypto payment processor. According to Fox Business, the deal is reportedly worth $175 million.

The Miami-based company aims to expand its trading and marketplace volume using Helio’s products. “This acquisition is an important step in advancing our vision for the future of payments,” said Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and co-founder of MoonPay, in a statement. “Helio’s technology and expertise strengthen our ability to deliver efficient, secure, and scalable solutions for crypto commerce, trading infrastructure, and marketplaces.”

Helio, a London-based startup, was launched in 2022 and enables businesses to process payments via digital currencies such as USDC, SOL, BTC and ETH, among others. Helio has already processed over $1.5 billion in transactions and has integrated with platforms including Discord, WooCommerce, and Shopify.

The company supports over 6,000 merchants and one million users. Meanwhile, MoonPay has over 20 million users, the statement said.

The deal comes after MoonPay formed a strategic partnership with PayPal in May to use PayPal accounts for buying and selling over 100 cryptocurrencies on its platform. Then, in October, PayPal announced that eligible U.S. users could use Venmo to fund their accounts on MoonPay.

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KuCoin Enables Crypto Point-of-Sale Payments by QR-Code

KuCoin has introduced a feature for merchants to allow customers to pay for purchases directly from their account on the crypto exchange.

Merchants can integrate the tool, called KuCoin Pay, into their payment systems. Customers pay by scanning a QR code or using the KuCoin app, the exchange said in a press release.

The exchange joins a number of crypto payment providers in facilitating direct payments for customers, a feature that’s supposed to bridge the gap between crypto and the legacy payments infrastructure.

In August, for example, digital payments platform Flexa announced a similar product with retailers including Chipotle, Mikimoto, Regal Cinemas and 99 Ranch Market.

The new infrastructure supports 54 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and the USDT and USDC stablecoins.

Several merchants, who expect to launch the feature in January, have signed up for the product, a spokesperson for KuCoin said. Their names cannot be disclosed at this time.